GoT Season 7 Episode 1 Review and Predictions.

Dear Reader,


Here we are at the beginning of the end. Here at last on the shores of the sea comes the end of our Fellowship. I will not say do not weep, for not all tears are an evil...Wait wrong story...

GAME OF THRONES SEASON 7 HAS OFFICIALLY ARRIVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

     
        It's been a long-awaited few months, as HBO pushed production back so they could spend more time filming amazing battle scenes and dragons and (I'm assuming ) giving Lord George of House RR Martin more time to finish his books. It's my personal theory that George is pushing himself with his dear friends Elio Garcia and Linda Antonsson, who Co-Authored The World of Ice and Fire, which I use as a coffee table book to reference Ice & Fire history and argue with people about Game of Thrones, to not just finish Winds of Winter but to also finish book 7, A Dream of Spring. I have a lot of theories okay, don't judge me. I'm totally normal and not at all dorky and in desperate need of a love life. This, of course is a terribly Naive, and embarrassingly optimistic theory, but hey...wishful thinking! Really I wanted to use this tinfoil-hat theory  as a catalyst to introduce you to some of my (actual) theories on how this great TV juggernaut is going to captivate us with its second to last season! In this post I'm going to go over what happened in the first episode of Season 7,as well as post my predictions of how the season is going to end. I'm so pumped. Okay, lets just jump into it.

Avast, ye mates of the Iron Fleet!! There be Dragons and SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!

        We start as we always do, the static fuzzing and choral calling of HBO's title screen just to get the hairs on the backs of our neck standing up. Then we go right into a cold open of Walder Frey, (whom last season we recall being cut open after eating some of his nephews in a pie) at a lovely dinner with all his next of kin.  He's toasting the defeat of House Stark and reminiscing of good old times when the Freys and Boltons butchered their fellow Northerners at the Red Wedding. Then he starts getting super cryptic and we realize something is amiss. The wine they toasted with has, indeed, been poisoned. Slainte! After all the Frey darlings have blown out their last chunks of blood, Walder reveals himself to actually be a faceless assassin: Arya Stark. She keeps the two girls (one, assumingly being Walder's new 12 year old wife) alive and tells them to spread the word that the North remembers. Killer.

        My thoughts: It looks like D&D are giving us their own version of Lady Stoneheart through the Stark's youngest daughter. Traveling around the Riverlands and hunting Freys. Or at least I hope.

Then we get our precious open credit sequence.

        Up at the Wall we see the new Lord Commander, Dolorous Edd just casually opening the doors even though there's an army of the dead fast approaching, It's fine. Look, there's a woman carrying a sled person! It's Bran and Meera Reed! So Bran tells Edd that he's a Stark and he's allowed to come join the Night's Watch. I need to point out that it took Bran 3 seasons to get to the three eyed Raven and then 1 episode to get all the way back down to the wall. Maybe "going north" was all uphill and "going south" is going downhill and they just rode the sled all the way back down? Whatever D&D have never cared about keeping travel distance accurate in the world of Westoros. Varys went from Meereen to Dorne to Meereen again in like a span of 45 minutes show time and Little Finger also seems to have trap doors whenever he needs to be places like Molestown. I've accepted it and decided to just turn my brain off at this point.

        The next segment we see that King's Landing is creating some great labor jobs: painting a giant map of Westeros in a lovely open causeway. Plenty of morning light and glorious archways to boot in the nicest section of the city... but it looked like it was an open roof, no? So I guess when the sun sets, that's it! Time to clock out from the war! Ehh details. So the new Queen of Westeros is going to be so feng shui-ed as she plans her war. Then her and her twin brother Jaime go over how basically they have no friends, and the ones they do were blown to bits. There are so many questions that they just don't address in this scene. What happened to the Tyrell forces in  the city? I know Olena (or, that old c@nt, as Cersei refers to her) ran off before her grand daughter's trial, but you can't tell me she took the entire Frey army with her, or did I miss that? Also, annoyingly, Jaime chooses to finally have a line with substance and brings up the death of his son. "We never talked about Tommen--" he says meekly. AND WE ARE NOT GOING TO BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE INTERESTING. Forget that your sweet, impressionable son, a victim of some pretty dark statutory rape as well as dogmatic religious influence, has killed himself; and you are directly responsible. Cersei just simply dusts it off and shoves a goblet of wine to her lips. Cool, so that plot point is dead, is that what you're saying? The Lannisters, it appears are all by their lonesome. Perfect time for some long awaited incest I guess? Especially if we are going to ignore the terrorist attack you are also directly responsible for...? No, no time for twincest, there's work to be done! Cersei has been on social media posting about how she's super hot and powerful and seriously looking for...a suitor? A new b!tch to do her bidding? But she already has Jaime to bounce her exposition off of, right? Well she's already gotten a response from someone: The new kid in town with a new Kingship and the largest armada of ships that the world has ever seen: Euron F@cking Greyjoy.

        My thoughts: Very excited for Euron, still butthurt about what they've done (or haven't done) with Jaime Lannister. They gave Euron a much needed makeover. Sexified black leather, haircut, and a general swagger and bravado that was sorely missing last season. This is (at least closer to) the Euron that I read about: the feared, unstable pirate shrouded with mystery with ambitions to conquer the world. So he proposes a marriage to Cersei, much to Jaime's objection, but she rejects Euron in kind because she's smart and likes to toy. But he knows power when he sees it and respects it. He proposes that he will bring her a gift worthy of her in exchange for her hand. Speaking of hand, Euron is very open about taking shots at the Kingslayer and it's kind of great. Euron will most likely be the new villain of the season, the actor seems comfortable in the role and we've barely scratched the surface of the depraved, violent nature of the Ironborn. While Dany would seek to kowtow Yara and her brave Ironborn, Cersei will unleash the madness of Euron and his fleet of 1,000 ships.

        At Winterfell we see another meeting of all the Northern Houses. This is a setup scene for some drama. Right off the bat, Sansa questions Jon's decisions to forgive the offenses of house Umber and Karstark, and the little lord and lady of the respective houses pledge their loyalty to the Starks. Now, to an extent, I agree with Sansa. These houses betrayed the Starks and fought against them on the battlefield, but dissension among rank is a d!ck move especially in front of the other lords. With Little Finger in Winterfell scheming away, it's likely to get very messy between the siblings.

        My thoughts: The Starks bring up Jeoffery and Cersei respectively and Sansa was fully aware of A: how vindictive and cruel a ruler Jeoffery was and B: How manipulative Cersei can be. She's learned much, and she's right, people shouldn't just blindly follow a leader, but be able to question their decisions because speaking truth to power is important. But! Being around all these viscous and ambitious political leaders: Cersei, Jeoff, Ramsey, Littlefinger... has clearly warped her in some way. So Jon decides to man the Castles of the now forgiven houses again with the respective houses that betrayed him, forging new loyalty (I'd still probably keep a ward as hostage) and then decides that it's a good idea to arm children to fight the army of the dead, that's fine. If every girl on Bear Island is like Jeor, Jorah, and Liana, I think we'll be okay...but what about the other Northern houses? Anyways Jon also decides that the Wall needs to be manned by the Wildlings because irony is cool (and Tormond is loyal and very familiar with the terrain after climbing it, killing Crows beyond it, etc...) so we've got some good setup for some upcoming battle tactics. Side Note. Look at the hairdo Sansa is sporting and tell me it's not eerily similar to early season Cersei. I smell controversy.

        The next scene opens with a song being sung about cold hands, kisses, and hands of gold. The singer is pop artist Ed Sheeran, and the world explodes with love juice and rage and they feel like "how dare we break the fourth wall with an out-of-place person even though we've done plenty of musical cameos throughout the show with Sigur Ros and drummer from Coldplay" -- so whatever. I will admit that it was distracting with all the gratuitous ginger close-ups-- because the song he was singing is actually of some significance. It's written (in the books) by Simon Silver Tongue--a singer who knew of the Hand of the King's secret love affair with a prostitute. This Golden Hand of the King choked the life out of the one he loved. Isn't there another Lannister with a hand of gold-- hmmmmm...
        So Ed, playing a Lannister soldier serenades us with Hands of Gold as Arya rides up to sit with (luckily) the only Lannister soldiers to ever exhibit human decency. This is a fantastic scene. It contains within it detailed human qualities that serve to paint the world of Westeros a variety of colors other than the medieval nihilist pornography that D&D know we love to wallow in. She feels all tingly inside, maybe from her heart coming to terms with the human side of war, like being trapped in the trenches with a Nazi and having to huddle together for warmth... or maybe the tingles are coming from her breeches because of Ed Sheeran's silky sooth singing. We'll never really know. Either way. Arya made some Lannister fraaaaands.

       Let's see...the Brotherhood without Banners is traveling north. Thoros of Myr is still an alcoholic and the Hound hates hipster haircuts. This particular sequence with Baric and Sandor and Thoros stuck out to me as far as cinnamon...cina...cinematography goes. I'm a sucker for dark snowy cabin scenes by the fire. The Hound, a known skeptic of religion has seemingly found some version of what one might call faith, or empathy, or humanity at the very least. He buries some bodies and is seemingly affected by their death. "I'm sorry you're dead," -- Brother Sandor of the Three Dog Shield. D&D love writing for this character and it shows.
        Side Note: Can confirm The Hound burying these bodies, like he did in season 6 with his group of sweetly shirefolk, totally means that Brienne's gravedigger was indeed Sandor in the books. Nice little nod there, show runners. Then the Hound see's some lovely visions in the fire and the brotherhood heads for Eastwatch by the Sea.

        Sam has signed himself up for the sh!ttiest internship (HA! PUNS!) known to man. The fat boy who faints at any sight of blood, Sam the Slayer, is now cleaning out chamber pots and pouring out stew until eventually they all run together. The Oldtown sequences thus far have a very unique, very playful wonder to them. So Sam is working on a dead body with Maester Marwyn whom I've been very excitedly waiting to see. He's the mad scientist of Oldtown, quite possibly the most learned man in Westeros, and he has many secrets surrounding him. This character has, I believe, a big part to play in the wars to come, but for now he is seemingly a skeptic, and Sam is told not to go into the restricted section of the library, and it's super weird because the actor portraying Marwyn is also in Harry Potter so now we have to wear that genre-crossing inception hat.
        So Sam puts on his cloak of invisibility and decides to systematically steal some books. On his way around the corridors, (There are students out of bed mister Finch!) suddenly Walder Frey pops out and scares Sam the Slayer, ahhhh too much genre crossing! No it's actually Jorah, dying slowly from Greyscale in a cell, who has presumably donated his body to science. He's asking about the Dragon Queen like some nutcase homeless man preaching on the streets. So Sam's gotta find the secret to beat the White Walkers and he thinks he may be on to something that STANNIS LITERALLY ALREADY TOLD HIM. Dragonstone is a mountain made of Obsidian. So let's get mining! Wow, contractors making maps in King's Landing, Stronger boarder security at the Wall, potential mineral mining on Dragonstone, Westeros's leaders have some seriously great job-plan initiatives, I don't know who to pledge my vote to...I'll have to check out their stance on protecting Greyscale-infected neighborhoods and keeping foreign invaders out of my lands. #Greylivesmatter #Buildthewall #WightfreeWesteros.

        Okay so Dragonstone. Let's go there. Cut to Dany and her fleet FINALLY Landing on the shores of Westeros. Oh Dany, I remember when you were just a naked blonde bargaining chip sold to a viscous Dothraki savage with big muscles and guy-liner...how far we've come. So Dany and her (some old some new) advisers climb the steps of Dragonstone, where her forebears first landed many many years ago and took over Westeros on the backs of three dragons...ahhhhhh Narrative Parallels are so satisfying. So we have Cersei and her lovely new map-tiled war room, and Dany taking down Stannis' flaming hearted Stag and setting up at the Stone table where we watched Stannis the Mannis succumb to dark magic again and again. There are no rightful King's anymore...only takers.

        So there we have it, kids, The board is set...the pieces are moving, to end things with a quote from Gandalf the same way I began. The theme of this post is apparently 'crossing genres.' Remember when Ed Sheeran sang that song about Smaug for the credits of the second Hobbit  movie?? See it all comes together! Oh, you didn't see the Desolation of Smaug? Alright I'll see myself out.

  EP 1 is in the books, dear reader.

AND NOW ... Predictions of up-and-coming events based upon the ep 2 teaser, and also my educated guesses on the the long game: WARNING. I'm very informed and f@cking good at this stuff, so I may ruin the whole season for you.

Arya: She jokes about going to kill the Queen (Cersei), and while that's obviously her intent, she'll get distracted. On the road she's going to run into an old friend. Nymeria, her Direwolf. It's going to happen. the she-wolf is going to be wreaking havoc in the Riverlands.

Jon: Jon will receive a whole bunch of letters. Word from Sam about Dragonstone. Word from Edd that his brother is at Castle Black. Word will also reach Winterfell about the Dragon Queen and the Northern Council will bicker about whether or not they can be trusted. Lord Royce of the Vale is wise and battle hardened, and he will voice disdain for the Targaryen cause. Jon will want to go to Castle Black and see Bran because he prefers adventure rather than ruling and will eventually leave Sansa in command of Winterfell and ripe to be manipulated by Littlefinger if the Lords of Winterfell and Brienne can't offer her enough support. Targs being on Dragonstone and Starks knowing of the obsidian mountains may lead to an eventual friendship.

Dany: The Targaryen Banners flying from Dragonstone. They are going to want to act fast. I't will be interesting to listen to her advisers who all have very different ideas concerning war. Yara will want to attack fast and hard on the battlefield, the Martells will want to act out their revenge, Olena will want to reach out to Highgarden and gather allies, Tyrion will want to plan a cautious but effective power move that weakens the Lannisters while strengthening the Targ cause...and Verys will have already known everything there is to know and bring in a new variable into the fold. But all these plans will be interrupted when...

Euron attacks: This gift  I imagine to be one of two things. In the books, we learn that Euron is not only in possession of a petrified dragon egg, (You need fire, and the blood of my blood to hatch a dragon, as far as I'm concerned) but he also has with him Dragonbinder: a horn that was used to control dragons. So, bad@ss Pirate Euron will attack Dragonstone and use the Dragonbinder to control one of the Dragons. I believe the gift he may be speaking of is that he wants to capture one of the dragons and give it to Cersei...but will it be dead or alive?

Bran: Within the safety of Castle Black, Bran will offer us some insight concerning the advancing White Walker Army. That shot of the army of the dead approaching was EPIC. There is magic in the Wall and I believe Bran will learn of the magic within, just as he learned about Hodor...is Bran actually Bran the Builder? Is the Wall filled with magic because Bran puts the magic inside the Wall? does he make a mistake or learn of a fatal flaw within the Wall? Does he try and fix the flaw and thus create the flaw, making his own prophecy come true? Speaking of prophecy...

Cersei + Jaime: Jaime is mad about Euron, but his sister assures him he has nothing to worry about (Lies.) She sends him to Highgarden to bring the remaining Tyrells to bend the knee or die. She needs people either out of the way, or on her side. Who is left in King's Landing to oppose her now that all her enemies within the capital are gone...or are they? From the looks of the Ep 2 trailer, it's going to be chalk full of meetings and politics. I believe Cersei will blame the Wildfire terror attack on the Targaryens in order to rally the people of Westeros (or King's Landing at least) to her side. Eventually of coarse, the Lannisters will meet the Targaryens in the open field of battle.

Sam, Gilly + Jorah: This one is interesting. Sam needs to uncover the secrets of the WW, possibly about the secrets of glass candles  and obsidian. I believe that defeating the White Walkers will come at a price, because Westeros will soon be burning from Dragonfire, and that's bad. Let us not forget that the children of the forest created the White Walkers to defend themselves against a great threat...the Doom of Valyria brought with it disaster. So. Overwhelmed with anxiety about the coming threat and not being prepared, Sam will freak out and Gilly will offer to take on some of his internship duties in secret. Passing Jorah's corridor, I believe she or Sam will take an interest in Jorah's stories of the Dragon Queen and his affliction. He, out of desperation for a cure for his Greyscale will pass it on to either Gilly, or her son Sam jr. Sam the Slayer will be moved to find a cure out of desperation and Jorah will travel to cure himself and will be faced with a choice: Return to Oldtown with whatever ingredients are needed to save Gilly/Sam jr, or return to his Queen and fight by her side.

Also Yara and Ellaria totally make out. Nice.

Well, I'm excited to see what we have in store and to see how many of my predictions are on the money. Just now I've decided not to predict the season's endings until the end of next week just to have a bit more insight. I'm looking forward to rewatching this episode though, as far as "season openers," it had a lot of really great moments!

Winter has officially begun. See you next week!

-CjM           



                   
     

                 

 

Random Thoughts on Racism, Intersectional Whining, and Why Stand-Up Comics Need Not Give a Shit If They Offend You.

Dear Reader,

I bet you thought I was done. I bet you thought I had abandoned you, that I no longer cared about writing or art or self-expression. I bet you thought I had given up.

Naaaaa I doubt you gave two sh!ts, I'm sure you got your own thaaang going on. You do you, I'll do me. Anyways I've been getting a ton of writing done on a new project after I finished a little novellette. I'm thinking of self publishing it, because who the hell publishes novellettes anymore amiright? Anyways I'm really excited about my new project so I've been barraling into it headlong and not giving a Fluuuuck about you or any of my other projects for that matter. Plus I figured that absence makes the heart grow stronger, so it will really improve our sex life (you know, depraved butt stuff, that type of thing). Okay gross. Moving on.

        So much has happened since I last wrote to you. I'm working at a Theater here in the cozy little Berkshires, I feel like I might have already told you that, however. I've also joined the gym again and have to say, I haven't felt this physically fit and energetic and motivated since I was in college and used to wake up at 7:30 to meet with a friend of mine. The colloquial wisdom offered by so many before me has it right: wake up early, make your bed, eat something (ANYTHING. I can't tell you how long I've been opposed to breakfast, my stomach never never is in the mood for it) and then get in some exercise to start your day. I don't know if you know this but I was born with a very serious heart condition. Anyways I'm lucky to be here and lucky to have a family willing to have done everything they could for me so that I might grow and flourish.

        Well, I'm 27 now (had a birthday since I last wrote in this thing) and realized that if I don't get in shape now, I'll be setting the course for a nice little heart attack at 55 and I don't want that -- I have so much to accomplish that I need to keep this thing ticking! So yeah, I'm looking dead sexy and getting more writing done than I have in some time and making good money. It's about damn time.

        Enough pleasantries though, lets talk about some social issues and get our hands dirty with some polarizing opinions and condescending rants!

        Stand-Up comedy. I'm a huge fan of stand-up mainly because I consider myself witty and disgusting enough to have dreamed about doing it. However, like 99% of us, I'm a coward and (even though I went to school for performing) am deathly afraid of not having my material enjoyed. This, I feel to be a normal challenge that any human faces who thinks about any number of public speaking ventures: giving speeches, etc. Anyway It's one of my (personally) highest respected art forms.

        Let's be clear about something. There IS a line when it comes to comedy, and that line is always subjective. What offends you may not offend me and vice-versa. But we must uphold and protect the FREEDOM to offend. The best of the best of stand-up comedians, through anecdotes, through metaphor and ironic happenstance, through the formulaic setup up, false end, awkward pause, and gut-busting punch line, are crafting... what again class? Oh yes, JOKES. These are not vindictive pathologies and manifesto-type calls to arms, these are human thoughts, observations and insecurities being unravelled and exposed in sometimes eloquent, sometimes crass manners.

        Recently there has been controversy over some Stand-Up specials and normally I just let people have their dumb fucking hyper-sensitive opinions about things, but you've come after some of my heroes with your trite, psedo-intellectual checklist of social conformity. Just keep moving the goal posts over until nobody can joke about anything except what their vagina smells like and why they have a problem with Trump. As if it's some BRAVE fucking stance to take up in telling everybody that you don't like the current Asshat-in-Chief.  Kill me now, I'm fed up with this culture. And we won't learn. We won't grow up. We won't accept that freedom of expression is meant for EVERYONE and not just people that align with our liberal values or our christian values or whatever the fuck people want to preach about. Go sort your shit out and then come back and join the rest of us adults who just want to take the piss out of life's brevity before we check out.

         I'm certainly not the first to say that there is an epidemic of professionally offended sycophants and "bigoteers" out there, and while they have the right to criticize, their opinions have become so militant and off the deep end, it's no longer a surprise to me why so many people reject the idea of the "modern progressive." You're all in a fucking cult, that's why, and I'm thankful every day that their are still people out there who laugh at you. Unfortunately though, there are also people that take your unending, predictable hyperbolic noise as a threat, and believe it or not don't like being told what and how to think and feel and take offense to and believe in and vote for. So they vote against the candidate that they feel represents this type of thought-policing, this type of malignant political correctness. Call it paranoia call it ignorant and uneducated, call it whatever you need to make yourself feel better, or validate your sanctimoniousness, but we supposedly live in a sovereign nation, and people don't like being labelled an enemy simply because they won't fall in line with your hyper-sensitive histrionics. Gee, and we wonder why we lost the house, senate and presidency to a gang of milk-toast cartoon villains. We're tearing down even our own ALLIES who dare step out of line with a thought that makes us have to use our brains for a second, and we treat stand-up comics as though they are up on stage running for office. I understand that it's confusing because our politics have become some sort of hollowed-out game show, but comedians are here to entertain, and politicians are here to lead... not vice-versa!

Let's take Dave Chappelle's recently released Netflix Specials.

        Dave took something like a "12 year hiatus from comedy," to do human things such as have a family, and live in a quietly quaint progressive mountain town where people didn't relentlessly run up to him shouting "Y'all got any of that crack cocaine?" and "I'M RICK JAMES, BITCHHH!" Anyways he came back with a bang and made a deal with Netflix to do three comedy specials for 60 million dollars. That's $20,000,000 an hour for anyone counting with a bitter taste in their mouth because you (like me) have to check your bank account to make sure you can afford to get a soda with your popcorn at the movies. "Well I got paid this morning, but this has to last me two weeks and I think my car insurance is due this pay period and fuck, my loans too... dammit! Screw this, I should have just stayed home and watched Dave Chappelle's comedy specials." Meanwhile your date is staring at you because you've been speaking out loud this entire time.

        I digress. Chappelle came under fire from a lot of... shall we say... darlings... out of some particularly sensitive and historically disenfranchised communities. Of note, Chappelle taking a glib view of how his wife's gay friends are always on about some cause (taking the words "husband and wife" out of marriage certificates, a pretty sensible thing considering the state of marriage equality) and his JOKE is to say "listen, take it from someone who's been there and SLOW DOWN. Just figure out which one of you is gayer, and that's the wife!" This joke is well crafted, but I shouldn't have to defend it. Chappelle is a man who brought more conversation, change, and progress to this country (racially speaking) than any uptight columnist's predictably offended rhetoric could dream of achieving. My advise, I'm talking to my circle of "socially-concious"(hyper aware and overly critical) liberal friends now, is to let the little fish go so that we can save our strength for the big fish.We may just bring the average voter back to our side. People will come around. Progress takes time. Stop being intolerable, white-knight narcissists.  Dave Chappelle, of all people, is not the enemy, he's just having a go at people in general that drag their politics around with them everywhere they go, it's just that in this instance, it happens to be a conversation with a gay person.

         The frustrating part, I find, in so many of these criticisms of Chappelle and countless other comedians, is that they are ironically riddled with pathological identity politics and a constant call to a victimhood hierarchy. "Straight black man" "Cisgendered" "older generation" are among the labeled hurled out at Dave to relay to you the idea that he's in a position of power, and therefore isn't "woke" if he decides to make insensitive observations about things. Rarely though, is he labelled "Comedian," I've noticed, a rather important detail considering. The best of the irony though, and I'll use a rubric from Chris rock, who once famously said "I love black people man, but I hate n*ggas," is to talk about what they do, not who they are. This is exactly the kind of quintessential law that Chappelle follows in his comedy, and exactly what these critiques DON'T do. Chappelle uses specific examples about how his friends can sometimes act ridiculous, he crafts jokes riddled with irony and astute observations on the absurdity of some particular people in some particular communities.

"I know hard n*ggas from Brooklyn that walk around in heals just to get passed over by the cops."

"It turns out that the Q in LGBTQ means questioning, it's for gay dudes that don't really know they're gay. You know. Like prison f@gs."

        The criticisms of these jokes mostly come from activist pseudo-celebs whose only platform has risen out of thought policing, and assuming that anyone from any historically or otherwise disenfranchised communities must not have senses of humors, and they get to deem what "punching up" means in a worldly context, despite never having tried to make people laugh for a living. Never having to try and please millions and millions of people all at once.
          So instead of dissecting why the jokes don't work ( perhaps because they DOo, Davie??) He is met, again, with boring, character-assassinating labels like "privileged" and "out of touch," that might as well just say "he's rich and old so his opinion and humanity is lesser of value now."
         There are a lot of things I can't stand about the condemnation of humor, but the terms "privileged," and "out of touch" are the most blatant attempts to misrepresent someone that I can think of.  Having hypothetical privilege DOES have some context into your socioeconomic existence, but when it comes to criticizing art, this vague, abstract concept of privilege has no f@cking place in a conceptual critique of someone's work. Criticize the content, don't throw out some ad hominem bullsh!t just because YOU and your stupid, stuck-up friends don't find something funny.  Or, to repeat Chris Rock, Talk about what they do, not who they are. Your political, sexual, racial identity should have no bearings onto the content you create, and by labeling a successful black man privileged, you are subtly implying that success is nothing to emulate, and it's something that should not be aspired to.    
        I find the same problem with the label "out of touch." This, again, subtly applying that being older means you no longer have a valid opinion. As if to imply that once a person turns 40, they lose the right to be relevant, and should be dragged outside like the useless animal they are and be put down. As though him leaving Hollywood to raise a family in Cincinnati is the same as him wandering around aimlessly in the mountains for 12 years. They don't have phones and the internet in Cincinnati? They don't have social issues in Cincinnati? This Bullsh!t rhetoric (typical of the left, sorry but it's true) is the same type of myopic rhetoric that disenfranchises voters because you sound like a patronizing @ssbag when you tell someone they are "out of touch" because they disagree with your politics.  There are bigger battles to be fought than swooning over a "transphobic" joke. When you attempt to present jokes as statements, you are walking into dangerous territory.

Let's talk about a context where another "joke" from (again) a comedian got gobbled up. In this instance we deal with a slightly more outraged reaction and even a backlash and apology: Bill Maher said n*gga in an interview.

Interviewer: You aught to come work in the fields with us some time, Bill.

Bill: Wooo work in the fields? Hey, I'm a house n*gga!

        Now, I'm not personally offended by this, not just because I'm white, but because I don't virtue signal. There were plenty of (black ) professionals coming out in Maher's defense saying that they weren't offended BUT there were plenty who were. Let's be clear, the people in the black community who were offended by Maher's flippant use of a racial slur to refer to himself as a slave, have every right to be upset, even angry. This, ladies and gentlemen, is THE LINE, from which I mentioned earlier. Comedy is about finding the line, drawing attention to the line, dry humping it a bit, and easing people into not minding whether or not you cross it. My comments, of course, being hindsight, but much of why this joke isn't funny, to be honest, comes from the setup and delivery of the joke itself. It was crass, grating, and had no sense of humor behind it other than to say "Hey, blacks were slaves once, remember!" Yeah it was just a lame joke, and that I think is why the witch hunt was so easily justified. White liberal comedians have used the N word before, they'll do it again... but in the context of the interview, in the context of the joke... it just didn't get a laugh. (For examples of other jokes that don't get laughs that aren't equipped with dangerous racial slurs, see: any monologue from Late Night with Jimmy Fallen)
        This joke of course brought up the ever tired conversation of "Who is allowed to say what words." Are there some groups of people who should just never use a particular word ever, no questions asked? Or should we all just stop giving such atomic power to language and just let people express themselves the way they want. Well, the answer is both, really. Nobody should dictate what words we are allowed to use, but we should also be weary of our history, our current climate, our open wounds that still persist in some communities, and the platform to which we are speaking from. I can't imagine a context where any of us would HAVE to spout out a racial slur unless in some malevolent meeting with a bunch of other bigots, BUT most of us would, I think be a bit miffed if there was some legislation passed preventing certain groups of people from using certain words. No. Just have tact with your jokes, and be polite in public. In Maher's case, of course, like Chappelle, he is seeking for any and all opportunities to get a laugh, a groan, a chuckle, and it isn't as if he were attacking and referencing a particular person (other than his own white @ss) so I understand that the issue needed to be dealt with, but ultimately, the actual act was harmless other than in hypothetical context.  Being humorous and edgy while also being respectfully polite and empathetic to every intersectional social group is impossible and you will always offend someone, but at the expense of a damn good joke, it's always worth offending. But, to reference Dave Chappelle, which is how I got on this tangent in the first place..."It takes more than a word to break the modern black man." All that being said, Maher, we all make mistakes, and I feel (though my opinion means d!ck in this sort of conversation) it was good that he apologized for his off-the-cuff slur.
        For references to Whites using the N word with care, context, and brilliant humor, see Louis CK's rant on white lady reporters inceptioning his brain when they say "the N word" when he really knows them to be saying N*gger. "Don't hide behind the first letter like a F@ggot, just say N*gger you stupid c@nt. You're making me say it!" Or when Randy Marsh on South Park is given N_GGERS on a wheel of fortune game with the hint "people who annoy you." He doesn't guess the correct word, which is naggers.  These two examples of racial slur wordplay are cutting and smart and absolutely hysterical.  (For references on whites using the N word without care, context or brilliant humor, see Micheal Richard's ranting buffoonery during a laugh factory special.) "All I think of now when I see this sign is Micheal Richards f@ckin' up" says Dave Chappelle when he did the laugh factory.       
        Speaking of Comedians f@cking up, Kathy Griffin made headlines for holding up a bloodied head of Trump. This is another instance of crossing the line. What are you saying with this piece? You want to behead the president? Oh, okay, that won't get you in trouble at all. Good for you Kathy. I mean sure, express your distaste for the man, he's an uninspiring maggot with an IQ as low as his approval rating, that's for sure, but AGAIN, there is a line in (comedy? Terrible modern art? Photography?) And you cross it when you appear to threaten the most power man in the world's life. Now let's be clear, like Maher, like Chappelle, I'm all for Kathy to have freedom of expression, but in this climate, there are consequences.
        Now, for those of you ready to point out that Griffin, a woman, suffered far more consequences as a woman, than did Chappelle and Maher, both men, you are grossly over simplifying the situation.

 A. She will lose her new years gig and some other endorsements because she works for networks that depend on viewership. Maher and Chappelle made deals with companies that depend on subscribers only.

B. Maher and Chappelle made not-threatening jokes and references to large GROUPS of hypothetical people with anecdotes, Kathy plastered a direct quote from a single, specific person, the president, while holding a mangled sculpture of his head

Did I get a chuckle out of every single one of these Comedian's self expression? You bet. Was there clear differences in the levels to which they each provoked responses? You bet. Do I respect the hell out of anyone brave enough to speak their mind and try to make light, or bring attention to something that is on their mind. You f@cking bet I do.

       That being said, You don't get to spout off opinions, however well crafted or crude, without pissing people off... so is that the point? That there will always be people getting offended by brash commentators? And that there will always be people ready to provoke the hyper-sensitive? Am I just projecting my fear of expression onto these comedians who, let's be honest, probably get off on the controversy surrounding their work? Maybe the world is too small now, and maybe too many opinions can be a bad thing, or maybe EVERYONE, comedians, audiences, critiques, BLOGGERS who, at this point have probably gone on way too long, ALL just need to let the little fish go. Everyone just have a laugh and stop taking themselves too seriously. I think that's the answer, dear reader.  


Peace for now, it's good to be back.

-CjM


Oh ps. I'm done with political tirades because they exhaust me. I'm going to make predictions for the upcoming GOT season and then subsequently REVIEW EACH EPISODE OF SEASON ON HERE WoOOOoOOo!! So until next time, dear reader. I'm out!

Early Riser

Dear Reader,

         It's 5:47AM and the birds are all a twitter. I haven't been up this early in centuries and I'm almost afraid to share that. It's so beautiful a time with the sky a pale blue casting a strange sepia tone onto the rest of the world. I had such a wonderfully comforting dream this morning. I was, as per my usual dream, at some vacation cottage with members of my family. This has become the setting for most of my dreams in the last few years and apparently indicates stress. That's fine, Stress is normal I suppose (smiles through the pain). Anyways, from there I recall taking a walk with a beautiful girl I used to know. I had gone to school with her. She's one of those types of women that are too good to be true. Hard working, driven, sweet and bubbly and dangerously sexual. She's the type of girl, as my friend and I say, that I'd let ruin my life. 

        If you can't bring yourself to understand what I mean, I feel sorry for you. 

        In my dream, this girl and I were walking innocently on a boardwalk. Her in a sundress, me ogling her in her sundress (seriously, how unfair are sundresses.) And that, dear reader, was the extent of it. An innocent walk with a beautiful girl. It has now become obvious how crushingly lonesome my existence has become. I've been away from the city life for almost a year now. I've gotten so much writing done, made so much progress, and had so much growth. But. Yeah. This area is #LAME i'm a #BORNAGAINVIRGIN and it's awful. My sexual identity is a joke. No wonder so many young men find themselves addicted to porn. search "Mia Malkova" right now. Seriously. Just know that she, that innocent, doe-eyed sex kitten has been filmed performing just about every single sex act you would ever think of (and some you wouldn't). My point being, dear reader, however crass, is that when you are lonely in today's society, it's ever more easy to bury yourself into a pit of isolation and never come out. I'd give anything to make that dream of walking by a waterfront hand in hand with that beautiful girl I once knew a reality.

        The next part of my dream filled me with even more joy. I was randomly comparing notes with my closest friend who now lives in California. He doesn't keep a journal in real life I'm sure, but in the dream he did, and it made feel incredibly jealous so I went and got my journal to show him. This part I loved because when I got my journal, the pages came alive. We were transported to this dark, desolate land of red and grey and rock and sand. There were men traveling adorned in black cloaks. They were suffering, ready to keel over at any moment, then the sky opened up and a monster poured out. As they fought the monster I remembered being transported out into some random apartment where my friend and I were joined by one of my old college buddies. We were now discussing the finer points of the lore of my very own fantasy creations as the TV buzzed warmly in the background. That, dear reader, is my most precious dream: to share stories with my friends, and the world.         

        This all comes from being up early. If I can take the time like this every day to bang out a thousand words before the sun even comes up, (by now it is though, a lovely, warm pink sunrise) I just might find some happiness, I know, of course, that this will not always be the case. Mornings like this are a rarity...but they don't have to be! I'm actually awake and aware and that's the key: not to force myself up as though I'm struggling to fight off horse tranquilizers, but to get to bed early enough now where I can wake up with vigor and purpose. I do resist it so. I stay up late, stare into my phone until my brain is mush, and then surprise, surprise, I can't get to sleep because my brain is finally allowed to have a thought of its own for once, so it keeps me up. 

         I went to bed early last night because of a pounding headache. Turns out it was the best thing for me. No delving into pointless Facebook arguments, no porn, no stalking exes. Just sleep; deep, unaltered dreams about taking walks with pretty girls, and reading fantasy adventures.

        Well dear reader, I know It's been a while since you heard from me and I'm sorry for that (though not really.) I've actually been delving into a new short story that I'm really excited about. I explained the concept to my friend who brushed it off with a cavalier nonchalance which annoyed the sh!t out of me. I explained the premise to him, he's half listening while he flicks a f@cking cat toy at me. I wasn't pitching it to him as if he were a magazine editor either, mind you, he asked me what I was up to and I told him that I was at the lake writing. He asked what, I told him. He shrugged it off like a typical doubter who has only ever had good ideas in his head... and one day when he gets around to them... Please spare me. Anyway "The premise," I explained to him "is not the entire essence, or heart of the stoy, you realize". The setting and structure is a small part of the story as a whole. Stories are about people. Can you relate to them? Are they interesting and three dimensional? What message are you trying to get across with your story? For instance, my story is a comment on the difference in online dating between men and women. It explores superficiality, regret, desperation, sexual competition, and the unending cycle of searching through the meat market of single people. Everything else is just window dressing.
        Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones are both fantasies, yes, and one is even inspired by the other. But the stories and characters could not be more different. His comment of being "over the whole technology taking over thing" represents a part of our generation and culture as a whole that finds only surface observations in our lives. From the people we love to the movies we watch, all we see is how things are skinned. Which makes for superficial relationships, and superficial content. Am I relating my friend's inability to look past the sy-fi aspect of my story to much deeper issues like racial tension in our country? Maybe.       

        Alright, enough therapy, my alarm has gone off so that means it's time to get moving for the day. I'll continue to work on my story and chip away at all my other projects, dear reader. I'll post some more musings when I need to, but for now I'm kind of enjoying our casual relationships. I feel very inspired lately and just started a new job as a box office assistant at a gorgeous performing arts venue. The hours are easy and the town is really cute and progressive and all that. I'm going to try and get to bed early again so I can wake up and start the day with a little bit of this or that with my writing. Until then, I hope you keep well and continue working towards whatever goals you have. It's what keeps us going, right?

-CjM 

Boyhood: A Terrible Non-film With No Point.

Dear Reader,

        Recently I've been catching up on some of the "MY LIST" films of my Netflix account. You know, dear reader, how that stuff gets backed up because it takes little to no effort to click "add to list," but it takes considerably more effort to sit and actually block off 2-3 hours of our lives to invest in a film. Especially when our lives are so busy with work, school, family, etc, or if you're me: complaining about your life, working on creative projects, watching porn, crying in the shower...anyway there are a million-and-a-half reasons that we avoid rummaging through all the media content we "plan to watch." So last night, after feeling accomplished from doing some pretty solid writing, I decided to enrich my life by watching one of the many "critically acclaimed" films I have marked aside.
        I decided to watch the movie Boyhood.
        There are those movies, dear reader, that all your friends tell you to watch because they are "amazing," and "beautiful," and "profound". Ones that all the critics unanimously agree to be a heartfelt accomplishment of the human experience. Boyhood had that reputation, and let me tell you, dear reader, I did NOT agree with the hype.
        Let me first assure you I'm not just trying to be edgy by having a dissenting opinion. I watched this movie because I was excited to see it...after all...I'm a huge movie buff, and, I too had a boyhood.
       But Boyhood is not actually a film. It's a corny time capsule of an adorable kid that I don't give a single sh!t about, because nothing interesting ever happens to him, and he has barely anything interesting to say. In fact, you can almost see him never getting anything out of his life.
        This film has no structure, no plot, very little character development other that the characters literally aging before our eyes... really it took the beginning parts of every boring, forgettable story you've ever told, and filmed them. None of the scenes had any consequences to any of the characters. It left me wondering: Did everyone have such a deep connection with this film because EVERYONE is this boring? Am I this boring? No, no, that can't be it, it simply can't be. People are interesting and battle worn, people have grown up with all sorts of interesting and tragic occurrences. So it wasn't that this didn't capture our "boyhoods," it's that it focused on the pointless, forgettable moments that aren't worth talking about in the first place.  
        This was the movie equivalent to a meaningless piece of modern art that everyone is desperately applauding while they pretentiously give meaning to it, despite the fact that it had no meaning to begin with. Everyone unanimously agrees on its "profundity," but it has nothing profound at all to say. So instead of actually using their brains and criticizing it for what it is, they take it as a chance to masterbate to their own sense of pointlessness.
        The filmmaker doesn't believe in foreshadowing or narrative payoff. For example: There is a scene where Mason, our boyhood boy, and Ethan Hawke, who plays his father, are putting up Obama/Biden campaign signs. I won't get all political, but I voted for him, fine. Whatever. In the scene they are running around in Texas and asking people if they can put the signs on their lawn. There is a random attractive blonde woman that appears and has a moment with the boy and makes eyes with Ethan...if you've ever seen any movie ever, you'd think "Oh, maybe this woman will have some impact on their lives, because she's a character in the story being introduced." Nope. That would make sense. Just like the stereotypical hick that comes outside and tells them to "get off my lawn or i'll shoot ya!" Is he going to impact their life? No, don't be ridiculous.
        This becomes a pattern. We are introduced to a seemingly endless parade of characters that serve no narrative purpose, and a bunch of characters that are recurring, but who experience no growth, and whose plots are unresolved.
        You might be saying to yourself "well that's life." Okay true. But that's not film. There are story telling  formulas and structures that have been uncovered and studied over thousands of years that should be respected-- not out of respect's sake, but out of the idea that they WORK and are logical to human thought. You don't just walk into a chemistry lab and start combining chemicals because it's "creative," that's how you f@cking die. Okay so the stakes of making a terrible film aren't life and death, but understand my point. It's pretentious and lazy. It's like making up your own rules to playing hide and seek as a child, or thinking you're playing the drums by banging on pots and pans. It's experimental, but it's incomplete and illogical.
        "As long as you're expressing yourself sweaty!"
         If you reach a point in pitching a film idea that says, "let's just do it to show a reflection on the pointless and inconsequentially boring parts of life and take over a decade to film it..." Don't make that film. If you make 6 different useless scenes where the main character has a conversation with 6 different useless friends that we've never seen in the film before, and it isn't even necessary to follow along... you've made a bad film. In fact, you could take out any number of scenes from this wretched waste of time, and it would be completely inconsequential to the film. That's bad.
         A lot of the praise has apparently come from the fact that the film "Took twelve years to make." So?
 Something isn't inherently good because it takes a long time to make. It took JRR Tolkien ten years to write the Lord of the Rings. It took Peter Jackson 18 months to interpret the masterpiece and make them into incredible films. Art takes its own time. The length of time you took to cook a meal has no bearings on whether or not it tastes good. I want to kill myself after having sat through this and hearing how "well received" by critics is was. Are they all just offering a sarcastic round of applause for the actors and film-makers so they didn't feel as though they wasted over a decade of their lives that they will never get back? I just wasted three hours of my life that I'll never get back, where's my round of applause?
        "It's up to the audience to interpret a meaning!"
        NO it's just lazy story telling. You can have an ambiguous ending, sure. But this entire story is ambiguous. The end of Birdman leaves you wondering whether or not Micheal Keaton is actually dead, or whether or not "birdman" was just the looming shadow of his expectations and maybe he finally shed his former self and was able to evolve as an artist into something more than just "the birdman". It's ambiguous because it offers the audience a QUESTION, not because there is simply no point to it. Is Leo's character in Inception actually in a dream? If he is in a dream does he even care? Because he could learn to be happy with his family finally together down there...so whether or not he's in a dream makes no difference to whether or not he wants to wake up. So the audience is given something to think about, something to engage with, some question to answer.    
         Boyhood offers no questions. And even the characters that boring old Mason is surrounded with are rendered meaningless because NONE of their plots are resolved. Again, it's just a series of irrelevant moments masquerading as "deep".
        Like the ending scene for example, when Mason skips his orientation to run out to the desert with his new roommate and 2 girls we are supposed to care about because they are cute. This scene is riddled with dialogue straight from the first script you've ever written where you try to give your teenage character, high on drugs, a "profound moment" but you and the audience know that it's not actually profound, it's just a stoned character having trouble articulating the confusion of his own existence. Either way you should be ashamed as a writer because what you are actually doing is taking a stupid, useless moment, that might be used as an establishing shot for a party scene, and turning into the punctuation of your film.  So rather than try to articulate the beautiful phenomenon of this boy's existence on the earth, you hide behind it by presenting how glib and ironic it is when kids get stoned rather than actually explore the feelings they are having.
        WoOOh..life is like...a paradox man! And art is just...whatever you say it is! No. There are objective ways to tell what makes good art. There are objective ways to tell if your writing is terrible. It's a juvenile attempt to have a cute moment to end your crappy film that you wasted over a decade making. It comes off as contrived and completely empty because it comes from a boy we've spent three hours with who has had nothing interesting happen to him, and he's speaking with a character we literally just met 4 frames ago that we know nothing about, other than the fact that she is a human girl.

Here. Read this:

Girl we don't care about: People always talk about seizing the moment, but, like, I kinda think it's the other way around. It's like, the moment that seizes us, you know?

Mason: Yeah, I know. It's like constant...the moments. Like right now.

Cumshot. Credits.

        Ummm...What? Was that supposed to...what in the heavenly f@ck was that? I'll tell you what it was...pointless. It's a nice little "f@ck you" to the audience that purposefully offers no depth, no intrigue, and no point.
        So is that the point? The point is that there is no point? The little moments are precious, is that it? It took you three hours to tell me that? Bravo! Bravo! No. The point is that you had twelve f@cking years to make a decent, compelling script, but you didn't feel like it.
        I'm beside myself with rage. Not every little moment deserves to be shared. It doesn't make it "deep" to jumble together a bunch of pointless scenes that have nothing to do with one another in any sort of sequence, and applaud the characters for realizing how pointless they are. That's called boring, and it's the exact opposite of why we make films and tell stories and share wisdom. I think I'm beating a dead horse here, but I can't stop my hands from typing. Lorrrrdy this Nonfilm was so stupid.
        If we're supposed to believe that "these are just life's little moments from the kid's perspective," I'd like to tell him to wake the f@ck up, because he's responsible for an audience now, and he has learned NOTHING about anyone else's life. How did his dad and his new wife meet? What happened to his two step-siblings that were just randomly in his life for 3 scenes, and are now trapped with an abusive father for all we know? WHO CARES? NOT MASON. That's the lesson I got from this movie. What's he majoring in when he goes to college? WHO CARES. Does he still like photography? Is that his one creative outlet that he has in order to escape his brutally selfish and useless perspective on life? Why didn't he bring his camera to that gorgeous "climax" scene with his new set of friends that the audience isn't made to care about at all? WHO CARES (is there a pattern here?)
        Even this useless blog that nobody reads has a POINT TO IT. But I'm not expecting to be showered with accolades for just "being me." I guess that's the culture we live in now. Good for you scamp! You got taller!
        I don't know, I tried to like it. I did. But the meaninglessness of the film kept creeping in. It might just be brilliant for that very reason. It's convincing it's audience how beautiful and meaningful it is as it wallows in its trite meaninglessness. Genius. I mean, I for one can't get it out of my head, as you can plainly see. Not because it's good, or has any resemblance to story structure or character development...but because it's so painfully bad. I'd think my theory had some validity to it, but so much care and detail clearly went into making this. Like picking out pop songs from the year they were filming, and making sure that none of the characters had any consequence to Mason's life, and giving the cast different "looks"... (hats off to the wardrobe department though.)
        You know what this movie is? This movie is the movie that every 19 year old thought would be a great story to tell. Not because he thought it would be interesting, but because he wanted everyone to notice him, so he wrote a script about all the humdrum bullsh!t that he saw as profound, but everyone else just sees as "things that happen and are normal things."
        Help. I'm losing my mind. Just answer me this, dear reader... have you seen this film? If you haven't, don't bother, if you have...would you sit through that bullsh!t again for a second viewing? No you wouldn't. Because you probably have goals and a purpose, and wouldn't want to sit and listen to a close friend drone on and on about pointless, meandering anecdotes for almost 3 hours, much less WATCH a complete stranger go through all those non-stories. You don't make a film about a tree getting taller, because you have respect for your audience, so why would you make one about a kid?
        "Seinfeld pitched a show about nothing," You might say. Okay. But the "nothingness" is in the everyday situations and conversations in life that actually amount to high jinx and pithy arguments, and best of all, it ties every plot point up into a neat little hilarious bow.
        This has none of that. It simply revels in useless mundanity. With thrilling moments of human boyhood such as:

- bowling with dad. What happened when you bowled with dad? I bowled poorly and never bowled again!
- Playing Halo with a random friend that you'll never meet again! Is it a friend or a sibling? Oh well, it has nothing to do with anything anyway... You remember Halo though, right?
-Getting a haircut from your mean stepdad! But don't worry, because the biggest arch in this story is basically pointing out all of Mason's different haircuts!
- Suddenly alcoholic step-dad decides to throw a glass at Mason...okay here we go, there is going to be some conflict right? Right? The next scene, suddenly alcoholic father is questioning the kids and checking their phones to where mommy is...then she comes to the rescue saying "I'm taking my kids!" then he says "no you aren't" then she says "yes I am!" then he says "Okay fine." So she leaves with Mason and Mason's boring sister whose only character development, again, is the fact that her hair changes.
- Random teacher we have never seen tells Mason that he shouldn't focus on photography because following your dreams is pointless. That teacher is never seen or heard from again.
-Scene where adolescent boys talk about "getting some pussy" in an abandoned...garage...deconstructed house? Sure. Fine. That happens all the time, but why am I watching it? Who are these kids and why do I care? This is the first time any of them have appeared on screen. Then one of them says that he "has some whores coming." because he wants to errr, assert his manlyness? Are they like actual prostitutes? Or does the boy just refer to women as whores? I don't know and I don't think the writer gives a sh!t because this character is only in the film for another 45 seconds. So this scene actually might lead somewhere...maybe the boy will lose his virginity to some girl or prostitute --as I said it's never made clear-- but NOPE! The older kid says "Just kidding! We don't have anyone else coming to this sausage fest." and then the scene ends out of fear that something relatively interesting might happen. I've seen better story structure in porn. And better acting, quite frankly.
- scene where step dad #2 yells at Mason for coming home late. Then nothing happens. So not only do we suffer through one pointless step-dad nonplot in the beginning of the film-- I guess they didn't think the audience had enough of these meandering moments to soak in-- so we watch it AGAIN with a completely different dad!
-Mason talks with his girlfriend of whom we know nothing about but I guess that's unimportant. They are in a car and Mason talks about being addicted to Facebook. Okay, I see your point. Is this going to go somewhere? His girlfriend puts the phone in front of him as he's driving. Okay this might develop...the number one cause of death for kids his age are car accidents...nope. scene ends.
- Girlfriend we know nothing about has sex with a college guy and breaks up with Mason. But we as an audience don't care because she means nothing to us. Which is basically what Ethan Hawke tells his son when he tells him to "forget about her." Done. I already have Ethan, she meant nothing to any of us, including Mason from what I've seen. We aren't going to just pretend to care about this girl of whom we don't know a single thing about other than she is cute. And that's pretty much the dialogue.
- Mason has a boring graduation party filled with a bunch of characters we've never seen before, as well as characters that will never get their plots resolved because Mason doesn't give a sh!t about any of them, so neither can we. His immediate family speaks, and says a bunch of terribly useless stuff about how proud they are of him. Then they ask his sister to speak, and we've been following her useless @ss for almost as long as Mason. Is she going to talk about how lucky she is to have gone through her life with a great brother like him? Is she going to offer some advise from the two years of college she has already experienced? No. She says "good luck" and then giggles. It's like the writer decided that her character would remain the same immature, bratty girl she had been at seven year old some two-and-a-half hours ago. Great.
        Art is meant to augment reality, reach in a pull out the beauty and honest moments that we have as people. It's meant to enrich, offend, offer insight, or tear something down. This isn't art, this is narcissism. If I wanted to remember my terribly boring high school graduation, I can just look back into my Facebook feed and view all the awkward photos that don't matter to anybody, and barely matter to me. That's all this film is: a video slide show of someone I don't care about.
       My favorite scene however, has to be the hilarious scene where we see Patricia Arquette saying goodbye to her kid. This is basically the film's attempt to recap all the torturous nothingness we just sat through. She talks about all of life's little milestones and then breaks down in front of her teenage boy because she's afraid she has no more milestones left in her life. Her son is about to take a huge step in his life, and she can only make it about herself. This scene is the most contrived, ass-backward and out of character moment in the film. She starts crying for whatever reason, I guess she's emotional for having wasted twelve years of her life filming this useless piece of garbage or whatever. And will we get any resolution for this moment? HA!  Will we, f@ck. It just ends. It's just another ejaculation of a terrible moment that doesn't lead to any sort of growth in the film. If I were that character listening to my mother have a piss-fit the moment I'm about to leave to further my education, I'm livid:
        "Why don't you pick up a BOOK you useless woman!" I'd tell her "Aren't you a College Professor? Have you never read Nietzche? What about "Man's search for meaning" by Victor Frankl, the Holocaust survivor who witnessed first hand the murderous indifference of the Nazi soldiers that just 'did what they had to do.' What about Soren Kierkegaard and his 'leap of faith?' How are you in charge of shaping young minds, when you don't understand the basic fundamentals of life's journey? That's terrifying. Have you not dealt with the fact that life is suffering, and the point of life is to have inner growth and overcome adversity? Why are you dumping this on me now, you useless shrew? Get your sh!t together, I'm leaving for college in ten minutes. This is what you want me to leave behind? Wow thanks mom, I'll be sure to feel guilty about leaving you to be alone with your insufferable self. Maybe you should stop sleeping with all these broken men and bringing them into our home."
        I mean I know it's probably blasphemous to say or even offensive to some unenlightened, pretentious turds, but what about THE BIBLE. The Bible that was GIVEN to Mason in some random, go-nowhere scene where the filmmaker was trying to paint this unbelievable cliche of a religious conservative family sitting around a porch, touting Bible verses and shooting guns-- which is ANOTHER unexplained narrative plot point! Ethan Hawke is this clearly staunch democrat, putting up Obama signs and stealing McCain signs off of people's lawns as I mentioned earlier, (See, Boyhood, I referenced something that happened earlier in my work so my audience could make a connection!) and then all of the sudden he's married to a conservative woman with extremely catholic family. What. The. Resounding. F@ck. If you're going to bring in the Bible as a gimmick to say "AwwWw look at these slack-jawed simpletons" at least have some integrity in your narrative and come to the conclusion that the Bible offers endlessly poetic universal truths to billions of people...But i'm sure they didn't want to upset or alienate their secular audience and force them to learn about other cultures. Anyways I digress...but at least (unlike boyhood) there is a point and purpose to my diatribe...point being: Don't have things happen to your characters that you aren't planning to use for a later purpose, especially if there can be a clear payoff and you just decide not to follow through!
        If you're going to have a character randomly and irrationally break down in front of her son about not having any meaning in her life, and 10 minutes ago you had a birthday scene where he's given a Bible...I dunno...maybe offer some kind of narrative resolution to your terrible film? Something? I mean I know it's hokey and overly simplistic, but hey, that's the precedent that you've set for this piece of meaningless post-modern garbage, isn't it?
        The most important question you should ask when creating a piece of art should be WHY? What are you trying to tell your audience with this piece? "People have childhoods," OH thank's for telling me.
        "People have pedestrian things happen to them and narrative has no purpose." Okay. Fine. But at least make the characters interesting! Were you trying to say that people, overall, have terribly boring childhoods? 'Cuz that's what I got from this unrelenting Odyssey of crap.
         But guys, remember... it took twelve years to make!
        Look, I'm all for breaking form and experimenting with film structure. But this is an insult to the audience. It's as shallow as it is time consuming.      
        Ugh. Well dear reader, after sitting through Boyhood I came away with the following: A boy gets taller, Ethan Hawk grows and shaves a mustache subsequently, and an aging actress gets more and more attractive due to the wonders of cosmetic surgery and diet pills...I'm at a loss. 3 hours of the pointless little parts in life all mangled together to create one huge pointless film. It was cinematic blue-balls that lead up to something interesting happening, but the interesting thing never happens...and it just keeps going on and on.

F@ck that movie. I should have just watched Fargo again for the twenty-seventh time. I guess that's the point to this post. If you've sat through that movie, I'm sorry, if you haven't, don't.

Family (American Failures)

Dear reader,

        Good morning. Coming at you today from historic Lenox! It's disgusting out today: rainy and cold and grey. I spell grey with an "e" because it's aesthetically pleasing, in other words 'fly', to me, rather than spelling it with an "a". Both ways are correct, mind you. Anyways, I'm wondering when this never-ending  Berkshire winter is going to take its bow and get the hell off the stage. The cold is seemingly perpetual and I feel trapped more often than not. I felt trapped last night and this morning, not due to the weather, but due to the fact that my uncle needed a place to stay, so my mother, ever gracious, took him in out of the kindness of her heart.
        Unfortunately, he's an obnoxious, foul mouthed, confrontational drinker with nothing but opinions in his head and time on his hands. Normally I find him quite entertaining, even jovial at times, but last night was not one of those times. I came downstairs from some editing and there sat the cliched man with his hair disheveled, dirty feet up on my mother's coffee table, and an empty plastic bottle of whiskey in his lap. He had been kicked out of my grampa's house for mouthing off, or blowing up, or sticking his nose where it didn't belong concerning the fact that my gramps is going through the process of talking to lawyers about my recently deceased gramma's trust. I don't know much about trusts, but I do know that my mother's side of the family consists of a bunch of entitled, codependent teenagers (though they are all in their 50's and upwards) who have spent the better part of their life griping and comparing their worth to which one of them can put a bigger dent in my grandparent's fortune.
        So far, it's difficult to tell from the six of them which one is ahead. One thing is certain, my mother is in last place having been a financially independent mother of three who never asked for a thing in her life. (THAT'S an independent woman, by the way, ladies: someone who doesn't expect anything out of anybody but herself, who stands up for what she believes in and makes her own life choices. She's a total bad@ss.) So my uncle, as I said, was kicked out my grampa's house for being, well, himself. He was in town because my parents (who are not swimming in money, mind you) hired him to put a back-splash in their new kitchen. "Keep the money in the family" I guess is their philosophy, which I understand to a point.
        So, not only have my parents graciously taken in their despondent, cynical son for a temporary (albeit, indefinite) stint while he chips away at the block of clay that is his novel ("oh, he's a writer") ... now they are also forced to harbor my mother's brother for the weekend on top of that. Apparently there are no hotels in town, as my dad and I sardonically observed.
        Needles to say, I gave up writing yesterday after the noise of my uncle's arrival overtook the house. I don't know if you've ever been in a scenario where two dependent losers are forced to share a roof that doesn't belong to them. Normally, if at least one of them is in a pleasant mood, there is little more than passive aggressive jabs, lighthearted digs and conversations soaked in delusion and denial about how "things are looking up."

PSA: I'm in a mood today, dear reader, I'm not normally this cynical or bitter about my living situation, career path etc, and at my young age as I work towards success, it's an entirely acceptable thing, and becoming a societal norm in this region/economy, to make different sacrifices in your life (I.E. living temporarily rent-free) in order to achieve a greater goal. Buuuuut... that's not how I've been feeling lately.

        My mood was sour yesterday. I have been having many sleepless nights lately and haven't been chipping away as much clay from my metaphorical sculpture as I'd like to be. I've been letting fear overtake me and fill my head with too many op-ed articles where  "progressive" well-meaning, authoritarian leftists want to sensor and change and be overly sensitive and pedantic and pseudo-intellectual about people's art Then I follow that by reading too many counter articles riddled with paranoia about how people's right to express themselves and be offensive is at more of a threat than it has ever been, and Marxist pathology is suddenly leaking into the mainstream of college campus's and soon dangerous Utopians are going to round up all the free-thinkers and send them off in boats to Bulgarian work camps and starve them to death.
        Obviously these are complex issues to sort out, and obviously there are bigger issues in the world to concern ourselves with, because most of those other issues are rooted simply in paranoia: but as a selfish, fragile loser with nothing but a creative voice to his name: I have a dog in this fight. Both sides have valid arguments, some more valid than others, and that's what makes this all so frustrating, that's what fills me with such deep angst and tortured anxiety.
        So with this all on my brain, crippling me from writing anything and assaulting my ability to think unfiltered...I then had to deal with an evening of my drunk uncle. What sort of family visit would be complete without me feeling guilty about living under my parent's roof, making me feel professionally inferior because I'm out of work, and making me feel intellectually irrelevant because I decided to "waste my time majoring in theater." Cool. So now, dear reader, you're up to speed.
        My mother's family has never gotten along. This uncle is mad at that uncle, my aunt won't speak to my grampa, gramps won't speak to this uncle, that uncle owes this uncle money, and on and on it will go until my brothers and I are the only ones left to plan all their funerals. The key element here is that my mother is the safe-space for all these desperate, adolescent mental-patients. She, the good willed, fortitudinous peace-keeper will always be there to lend her siblings an ear, a roof over their head, and access to my father's liquor cabinet. Each one of them projects their failings onto the other, or blames my departed grandmother for not loving them enough, or blames my gramps that though he spent the better part of his retirement cutting checks for thousands upon thousands of dollars to support them, he still owes them more. My mother calls it being a good sister, I call it being an enabler. The same way they all enabled my gramma to continue chain- smoking well into her 80's and surprise surprise, it was asphyxiation by lung cancer that ended her life, may she rest.  
         They are all, each one of them, in a collective stage of anger in their grief. I've never seen anything like it. Of course, they've always been petty, bitter little antagonizers, so this almost isn't a surprise...almost. They're all just griping over inheritance, rather than respecting the memory of their mother, and it's terribly sad. I've actually begun to outline a play about it all. A way of dealing with my own grief, I suppose, and I will hopefully not focus entirely on the petty grievances of the American Failures that make up my mother's side of the family. The scariest part is that last night, as my uncle took a break from making me feel badly about myself and started to rave on about my grandfather's (the man who built my family's fortune) "unwise financial decisions",  and how his little brother is draining my grandfather's retirement trust (the black pot and the blacker kettle), I couldn't help create the scenario in my head where I might end up like him. That is another one of my fear's dear reader, and I think we all have someone in our life that we look at and judge and resent for fear that we might end up like them...I have several in my life, however.
        So, rather than analyzing why his second wife has left him (it's the drinking, believe it or not,) or why his daughter from his first marriage hasn't been in contact with the family for ten years, or why he's bleeding through his inheritance to take a trip to Florida on the evening of his mother's funeral to meet with some woman he found online... let's ignore those topics and talk about how everyone else is dragging the family down, let's talk about how Trump is going to lead us into a war with Russia and the Liberal media is spying on us, let's talk about how in a downward economy, I should have gotten my degree in something worthwhile so I can stop living off my parents and contribute. This is just another case where the black pot strikes again, for he's the only man with I know who used his Masters degree in Communications to work as a part-time carpenter and collect money from two separate alimonies. Eat a d*ck, man. Okay I'm officially lashing out.
        And yes, I'm aware that I currently live in a milieu of artists and cultural progressivism, so the idea of unemployment is even more frustrating for me as I wait to hear back from theaters, writing groups and cultural conservation groups and the like...because of all places for a Bachelor of the Arts degree to get me work, this should be the f@cking place, No? These are the types of things that bubble to the surface when too many American failures are under one roof, I guess. I should probably work on finishing a chapter today, dear reader, I've been stuck on it for far too long and I'm at a stage in my writing where I can't move on from a certain part unless I've worked through exactly what I want to say. I'm a perfectionist when it comes to this novel, which leads to dissatisfaction, envy, and a deep, DEEEEP sense of helplessness.
        But hey, this ranting helps. So thank you, dear reader, for spending time inside my brain and getting to know my family. Hope you enjoyed feeling better about your own life as I expose you to the needless drama of mine own. Or maybe you have problems of your own and think I'm being a whiny little b!tch about everything, I wouldn't disagree with you. Though I would defend myself by saying that reading a blog and expecting it to not be filled with ubiquitous whining and complaintive moral superiority is the same inane expectations as when people go to stand-up comedy shows expecting an enlightened, inoffensive, and politically correct discussion.               
        In conclusion dear reader, in regards to drunken visitations by unwanted guests, I guess we have to remember that life is short, and everybody has their own demons, their own perspective, and their own journey to which they are either afraid is almost at an end, anxious that it hasn't yet begun, or desperately bitter that it led them to a place they never wanted to be. And, to offer a glimmer of hope before I sign off: maybe we aren't America's failures... maybe we just haven't succeeded yet. After all, life is not a sprint, life is a long, long, looooooong marathon.    

-CjM

Riffs and Rejections

Dear Reader.

        Happy St. Patty's Day Weekend! I hope you enjoyed the Holiday as I did. I'm feeling a bit hung over actually, which leaves me feeling cloudy-minded and physically weak all at once. I resisted going out and celebrating, but then eventually did just show up to a gathering when it was good for me. Finding the balance between being a recluse and being socially co-dependent is something we all struggle with I think. So i chose to work on editing some things and THEN go out and get hammered. It was as they say, "finding the balance between the order and chaos of life."

        I wrote a lot of fantasy this week because I've been reading some George R.R. Martin and he always inspires me. His writing style is something I envy, and in my own right, I suppose I try to emulate not his writing style, but the place from which he can create, which I believe to be something I like to call the "world building riff." It's a key element in the genre of any escapist fiction, especially in fantasy, and damn if George isn't a master. It's so detailed, thought out, and precise, that you almost forget that he's just pulling everything out of his ass, and that is the mark of a great writer of fiction in my opinion.  A good world-building riff begins with the characters you have in the scene and expands to the setting in which you are in. Whatever dramatic beat you are trying to instill within the character at that time is told through the channel of a conversation in which the two characters are relating their situation to a situation in the past history (that you are entirely making up, mind you). So you are all at once creating a mood and engrossing your reader deeper into an entirely new level of the narrative. This fleshes out the world for both you and the reader. The world-building Riff can be as big as a foreshadow for the entire story, or as immediate as telling how the chapter might end. Either way, dear reader, I have so much fun reading that sort of stuff and writing it too! It also gives more insight to the characters on top of it all-- you are getting a piece of their mind, and hearing about something that they were inspired by or afraid of, or fascinated with, and I find endless joy in the "world building riff " as I have dubbed it. It's the narrative equivalent to the guitar solo. For me it is an inspiring thing when an author completely indulges into their own world in order to paint the tiniest detail.

        This may or may not seem an obvious to you dear reader: "gee delving into details about the fictional world you've created is a good thing...DUH!" Well, it's not obvious to a surprising amount of literary scholars and opinionated critics believe it or not. I can't tell you how many seminars I've listened to that advise you to "trim the fat"and "just focus on the main beats," and as a writer, I have to say that there is nothing more humdrum, cookie-cutter, boring and TERRIFYING than to just hit all the beats to your story arch, then go home.

        Okay so yes, OBVIOUSLY do those things: have a rise and fall of action, create tension, follow the formulas of character arches in order to create a cohesive narrative, but what I'm saying is that you must ALSO not be afraid to dive into your world to give it some unique flavor, some depth of history that will offer some context to your characters, and for your world for that matter. Dive into your world as deeply as you may and find a way for that to (at some point) come back into play for your characters. I guess overall what I'm saying is don't edit yourself down to nothing-- your job is to write and write and write, not to fuss and criticize and doubt. You'll be doing those things eventually when you've constructed the narrative, but while your building the skeleton, try not to stifle the thing that made you want to start the story in the first place: your own unique, creative voice.

        Hey, speaking of Creative Voices, mine has recently been devalued and rejected! Okay well, in a matter of speaking anyway, I'm not purposefully trying to be put-upon and whiny, but I need to work through some of this sh!t, I guess. I received the rejection letter (if you can call two vague sentences that tell you how great you are, but not good enough,) from a local residency this past week so I've been trying to make sense of it and just move on. The residency (again, local) was looking for young, up-and-coming writers/poets/ etc... to come to the region and to bask in the deep historical connections this region has with American Literature. I thought since me being from this area and with NOTHING BUT TIME on my hands as I desperately shape a narrative, I might be a perfect candidate for the residency. With the added bonus of being paid and receiving interest and validation in my work, I sank a great many hours into this application process, put together what I thought to be an incredibly detailed and enticing project description, and waited only to be shut down in the most casual of ways.

        As artists, rejection, doubt and criticism are all just a note in the tune, a step in the dance, par for the course... an inevitability, and if you don't think that someone, somewhere out there is going to think your work sucks you are in for a terribly deluded future, dear reader. There are only two options to be faced with when something like this for example happens: 1.Let it defeat you, or 2. rationalize a way to overcome it. Well, let's assume option 1 is out because we are all passionate little optimists with unshakable spirits who have read the Bhagavad Gita and understood the true nature of their journey is to transcend adversity to eliminate suffering of the self... okay great so we're not going to let the rejection defeat us, so now step 2...how do we not let it?

        Well there are many way, dear reader, to not let rejection get to you...The easiest and most prevalent way that it got to me initially was that I saw it as a rejection of my entire self. It wasn't just the work they didn't want, it was that my entire journey as an artist, as a human vessel wasn't good enough for them to give me the time of day. This can be avoided in one simple way: SEPARATE YOUR WORK FROM YOURSELF. This is difficult for many artists for a variety of understandable reasons. For example: much of my novel-in-progress deals with my childhood experiences and conditioning and my home etc, so it's obviously very close to my heart. So when we as artists are told that "This project isn't for us," or "you aren't what we are looking for," it hurts on a whole different level than not hearing back about that application you filled out in the Starbucks at Barnes and Noble.

        My advise: do your best to see your work-- as closely tied to your very soul, your essence and being as it is-- as just that: work. Know that it's a product that will give certain people whatever it is your art is offering. Not every company is going to be interested in investing in your product for a million different reasons plus one. So what? Refine the product, fix things that need fixing because it's guaranteed that your product isn't perfect, otherwise it wouldn't be art now would it?

        Also, be honest with yourself. Was this the thing that was going to truly save your life and complete you as a human being? I doubt it. More than likely you just either have too much time on your hands, or not enough, and you wanted to throw out some feelers to see who might be interested in your project and it ended up not going the way you planned. So often we put everything we have into something like "a big audition," or "a big date," or "an application to a residency," because we feel lost or misguided or empty. What you need is to FOCUS, and not get bogged down by some superficial event that might validate your existence for a bit and make you feel desired. That sh!t comes an goes in waves, son. So...

        1. Separate your work from yourself.

        2. Don't give so much power and meaning to external occurrences beyond your control (as the Stoics teach us.)

        I'm sure there are 3 or 4 or even 5 good pieces of advise to not getting defeated by the idea of rejection. I guess the most important thing to do is to be honest with yourself about your goals and if your life isn't lining up with them, continue to work towards that goal. It (again) sounds obvious and almost trite... but if you are like me, dear reader, you are so over analyitical that there is no end to the amount of excuses you can come up with to convince yourself to give up. Giving up, letting my potential go to waste, and not sharing my creative gift to the world is like...my personal hell. Once I came to that conclusion, it was so easy for me to get over the rejection. Also, putting it into words for you dear reader gave my thoughts some much needed clarity. SEE, I'M ALREADY OVER HIM, DEBRA, I DON'T NEED HIM IN MY LIFE!

         Really though I hope this rant offered you something dear reader. Know that we all face rejection throughout our lives, and it does make us more humble and more resilient if we can find within ourselves the strength to keep our head clear and focused on what we really want. I wish you strength, dear reader!

        Until next time.
       -CjM