It's about respect and why it matters

http://nerdist.com/with-buffy-the-vampire-slayer-coming-to-hd-can-a-blu-ray-be-far-behind/

OK. Somebody finally did Buffy the Vampire in HD. The article tells you how the did it badly and just plain wrong. This blog is about why it matters and why you should care even if you don't care about Buffy the Vampire the Slayer or TV or Hollywood for that matter.


I finally get it. The ass monkey's who run Hollycrap aren't going to Hell...Hollycrap IS Hell and the worthless, soulless shitbags who do these things are, in fact, demons from Hell.

I dug to the very bottom of, I, in fact, dug underneath the bottom of the urban dictionary and there just is no word vile and offensive enough to tell you how much I despise the soul crushing arrogance of the subhumans who assume they always know better than the artists who actually create what is good and decent in our culture. They assume the right to monkey with everything because everything is better with their fingerprints all over it. These people poison our world and yeah, it really does matter. There is no Hell hot enough or eternity of suffering long enough for these people. No matter how much I loathe them they always find some new atrocity that causes me to hate them even more.

To understand, you need to read the article. You can’t just show the show in HD. It doesn’t exist in HD it wasn't shot that way. In order to show it in HD, it has to be remastered from the original film negative. When they did that they did NOT recreate what was shown in HD they changed things. Significantly and badly.

I think updating anything to HD, if possible, is a fine idea but, only if it’s done with respect for the source material and the people, who originally made it, regardless of what’s being updated.

 I have always insisted that movies should be shown in widescreen because that’s the way ALL movies are shot. There hasn’t been a movie shaped like TV used to be since the days of Casablanca. But reshaping a TV show to look like a modern TV or a movie is just as disrespectful of original material as destroying the framing of a movie was to fit an old television.
It’s about the obsession with making everything look shiny and new. Which in and of itself is fine. I love classic cars that look showroom new, but it has to be done with respect for the original. Buffy the Vampire has some of the finest writing and storytelling ever shown on Television but if you update it visually, which again would be great, it needs to be done with respect, not a desire to milk the fans for more money. This is abusive. It’s abusive to the original creators and to the fans who know enough to care and I’m sure that they have the LEGAL right to do it because of the foul way these people do business, but it doesn’t mean they also have a moral or ethical right do it.
This is about what kind of world we want to live in. It’s just as important as refugees and homeless people and hungry people, but it doesn’t get the same attention. It’s ALL about respecting other human beings and, in this case, the work they do. It’s about how we think of and treat other people and it matters and far too many people are doing it wrong and too many other people are shrugging and not caring. It isn’t Hitler killing millions of Jews, but the only reason Hitler and all the other evil scum like him get to the point they can kill people is because so many people turn the other cheek when it’s something  they think isn’t important enough. You don’t save the Jews Hitler killed with a time machine and killing Hitler as a child, but you can save the next batch by demanding that people respect other people when it is small things and it can still make a difference. And they AREN’T two different things, they’re the head and tail or the same snake and if we want to stop the next atrocity or the one after that or the one after that we have to care at the beginning when we can do something before the killing and the wars because that is where ideas like this lead.

Thoughts on Heroism, masculinity and such.

For the record this is old. Apparently I didn't hit a button or something. One of the many reasons I suck at blogs but it's short and it's maybe worth a minute of your time and a thought or two so...

http://www.warhistoryonline.com/articles/a-bridge-too-far-when-masculinity-mattered-at-the-movies.html

Hum. Wow.Where to even start? ABTF has been an icon of my past for...four decades give or take. It's one of the 713 movies on my all time top ten list. Two things leap out. The obvious watering down/dumbing down dare I say, liberalization of true heroics and heroism and the assumption that heroism is and should be the exclusive province of men...if I needed a motivation to write more and write louder, this would do nicely.

So. I've put more than a little thought into this sort of thing. The seachange from John Wayne as American male Icon to Clint Eastwood from Clint Eastwood to something closer to Kurt Russel as Snake Plissken and then as pointed out in the above article the Bill Paxton in Aliens model.

First I need to echo the cavalry charge sounded by among others Joss Whedon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoEZQfTaaEA) Heroism isn't just a male thing, but That's maybe a different discussion.

The question, are we losing an important heroic archetype culturally? Yeah. We probably are in many ways. more and more the stoic John Wayne, Gary Cooper a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do character is fading away. Do we need that character, are we losing something irreplaceable in our cultural psyche if or when that archetype fades away for good?

That's hard to say, but I suspect we are.

Banned books and why hipsters suck

A friend mentioned the old comic code. Made me think of a depressing conversation I overheard at the local Hippie Bookstore. Couple of hipsters dissing other hipsters for not being...I dunno not militate or hardcore enough. Among other things they were whining about banned books week which has apparently become something for hipsters to whine about.

It was sad, because they totally missed the point which hipsters (especially hipsters who fancy themselves as activists) almost always do. Hopefully if you're in this neighborhood you know the point, but in case you don't there are a lot of us who think things like banned books matter. No matter how small or large the group trying to ban something is, no matter how ineffective it is, no matter how pointless it is, it matters. It always matters because when any group gives itself the moral authority to tell other people what it's OK to think, what it's OK or not OK to read about and discuss...well, that's just bad no matter how you slice it. It's just wrong. No one should ever be allowed to think they have moral authority over anybody else. You can have legal authority but you don't get to decide what other people believe or don't believe. Banning shit is about preventing the exchange of ideas you don't like and in the end the exchange and discussion of those ideas is the only thing that gets us to a better place.

You can't fight every fight and you can't always win the ones you do fight but if you don't suit up for at least some of them you lose the moral right to complain about the state of the world you live in and frankly complaining about the world I live in is one of the few things that keeps me even remotely sane. The world is a fine place and it is worth fighting for, but it's also very much a fixer upper. There's a fine line between "don't sweat the small stuff." and the complacency that lets evil rule the world. It ain't easy, but to make any kind of difference at all you need to be ever vigilant and make sure you stay on the right side of that line.

This may not matter to you, but something needs to, because if nothing does...well, if you read this far it's hard to imagine I need to explain that part to you.

Wishing you as always the best of luck with all the things you do choose to care about. Have a nice day. :)

Happy Birthday to Me

Funny. I don’t feel older. Old? Yeah. Old as dirt. Old as cobwebs and dust in the heart of an ancient pyramid, but, what the the hell? I felt that yesterday…last week.

October the 12^th First day of my personal holiday season 12 Oct to 2 Jan. Season of pain, season of darkness, season of regret, self examination, and recrimination. Why didn't you do more, why didn't you accomplish more, do something that mattered, make the world at least a little better than it is without you?

I can feel the dark coming. I've felt it for about a week or so. Feels like a bad one. Lost and alone in this dark place. No light. No candle. No torch. No map to find a way out. No guide. Just alone in the pitch black dark with a pen and a blank page trying to write my way out, trying to write an escape route. Trying to write a lie I can believe, a fairy tale, a dream. A happy ending.

I gotta tell ya, I don’t love my chances, but what the hell, I woke up at 1:31 am on my birthday with words scratching the inside of my skull, an idea screaming to get out, to be set free into the world, the burning need to scar the white spaces with ink blood glyphs, that timeless and ancient magic that puts the thoughts in my head in someone else’s head, even if it’s just for a moment. Empathy? Telepathy? Sympathy? Magic.

I’ll likely never be the great magician, no rabbit in this hat, just a back ally street-punk side show trickster with a battered deck of cards and a few slick tricks with coins, but even a tired old sleight of hand con man can pull off a trick that amazes and fills the kids on the street with wonder, once in a blue moon. If he works hard enough and long enough and sticks with it. So. Maybe there’s a ray of hope in the ink dark blackness. The smell of a cedar wood fire on a cold winter’s night. Not even the light of a flickering candle blown out in the wind…but something. A ghost? The long dead spirit of hope forever lost, but no…wait. Maybe not. A taste on the air, a skin tingling chill in the wind that tells you, something is out there. Someone is listening. Words. Scratching. Straining the leash, dying to be set free to frolic in the cold midnight breeze. Witching hour magic.

There are worse ways to start the day. 

Memorial Day 2014

The best thing about having a blog no one reads is you can say whatever you feel like and not take any shit for it.

Memorial Day is a hard day/weekend for me.  I run the risk one of the few who remembers I'm technically a Vet will say thank you and I never ...No.  I was going to say I don't know how to react and the truth is I do-Just say thanks and move on, but it's hard for me.

I'm not a REAL veteran.  I don't deserve it.  I got the DD 214 and I got an Honorable discharge.  Did everything they told me or ask me to to the best of my ability.  Anyone says different can say it to my face and if they're still standing afterward they can kiss my ass, BUT...and it's a pretty big but, I should have done more.  I will never be, can never be OK with how that whole thing turned out.  I broke.  It's probably not fair to say they broke me.  They certainly don't think so.  Truth is i wanted to serve my country and I couldn't cut it.  Couldn't go the distance and i'll never forgive myself for...falling short in one of the most important endeavor any free citizen can ever undertake.  I should have done better and I by God should have done more.  I'll never know how to be OK with the fact that I didn't.

So when someone who knows I served but doesn't know how badly wants to thank me I'm filled with shame and self loathing.  I want so much to tell them to thank a policemen or and EMT or a nurse, a REAL soldier.  Someone who deserves it.  Anyone but me.  But, how can you ever explain It.  You know they mean well.  Their hearts are in the right place and it's not about you.  It's about all the people who ever put on a uniform and served a cause greater than their own.  So you grit your teeth and bite your tongue and say thanks, not for yourself but for all those who did what you didn't.  Those who served with REAL honor and not just the paperwork fairy tale version.

So many sins.  So very many debts to pay and only my words with which to pay them.  My words are woefully inadequate, but they're all I have.

I'll do what I've always done, what all those before me did far better than I.  I'll make do, do my best and soldier on, because I took and oath 3222 day ago and it's not the sort of oath you can ever un-take.

In reality I'm a wash-up broken down overly idealistic patriot who once had delusions of grandeur and stars in his eyes.  Who failed at the most important task her ever got his grimy soft hands on, but...in my heart and in my spirit, for whatever it's worth i will always be an American Soldier with all the duties and responsibilities that go with that title.  I'm a douchebag for whining when so many, some much better than I am paid a price far dearer than I ever will, than I ever could.  I live my life in service and in debt to all of those who went before me and come after me and honorably bare the burden I was to weak to bare.  I can never truly pay that debt, but I can never stop trying either.  And that's what Memorial Day means to me.

Why I love movies but loathe Hollywood

Things happen for a reason.  It's called cause and effect.  It's probably the single most important thing you need to know about the universe.  We'll never get anywhere, never make the world one tiny bit better than it is today unless we accept that-things happen for reasons.  It's the key to solving any problem.

Hollywood, for as far back as I can remember is a rejection of this idea.  Everything that happens in a movie happens only because some jack-ass decided that's what would look cool, and who cares if it's a direct violation of reality as everyone SHOULD know it.  It doesn't matter that we have spent generation teaching everyone that they should turn off their brains.  Thinking?  Think isn't important, thinking just ruins it for everybody.  And sure, why not, where's the harm?  Well, I'll tell you.  The harm is that all too many people never turn there minds back on.  Movies have taught them that thinking is a bad thing.  Things just happen because we want them to happen, because they look cool.  A man in a movie dramatically suits up in his armor because it looks cool and a few moments later is stabbed to death, because armor isn't meant to protect you from such things, armor serves no purpose at all except it looks cool.

Over and over and over again we find ourselves entertained by things, the primary message for which is, things just happen, we have no control over anything so way not just sit on our asses with out thumb up our asses and our finger up our noses and just enjoy the ride as it all comes crashing down around us...just like it does in the movies.

I think about the world as it is and the world as it could and should be if people just stopped trying to wish a better world into existence and started believing again that things ONLY happen when you make them happen, simple cause and effect.  It's NOT magic, it's NOT a movie.  It's real life and it will only get better if YOU stop wishing and waiting for other people to make it better and make it better yourselves, because that's how the real world works and YES Hollywood the way the real world works really DOES matter.

I'd gladly go on for days if I thought it would change anything, but I have long since lost my faith.  People have no patience for people telling them things they don't want to hear, and this isn't something they want to hear.

The villains of Hollywood and their ilk have filled our heads with the delusion that it's all just make believe and what IS doesn't matter.

Are the movies fun?  Sure they are, and fun is good, but their brand of fun is also poisonous.

I am the bad guy.  I am the one who spoils the show.  I am the one shouting from the highest roof-tops.  Reality DOES matter, The truth DOES matter and if we want a better world it's in our hands to make it so.  All we have to do is reject what Hollywood and T.V. and all that other crap has been teaching us for so long.  Things happen because we make them happen, for reasons-cause and effect and making it better is all a matter of excepting that and the doing something that matters.  Movies are dreams and dreams can be great but dreams can be real and the world can be a better place, but to make that happen-you have to wake up first.

And some day, you too, might write as well as Neil Gaiman. If you try.

So here I am writing along and things are going really well.  Things haven't been this smooth in ages and I'm not disappointed with how things are going at all, which is rare.

Then I see this thing Neil Gaiman wrote and I think, 'Oh God.  How in the hell does anyone get that good.  My stuff is such crap compared to that (and it should be he's been at this a ...professionally he's been at this a whole lot longer than I have) I can't imagine writing so well.  (Actually I do imagine it all the time but I don't believe those imaginings will ever come true.)

That's when it occurs to me to wonder what Neil's writing was like when he was starting out.  Surely he wasn't always this good.  Not even the great Neil Gaiman starts out this good, so if only I could read something he wrote that wasn't so good, a grocery list directions to his house anything.

I then realize I don't need the writing.  I only need to know it exists somewhere.  Once upon a time, even Neil Gaiman's writing was just...OK, or at least not nearly as brilliant as it is now.  You don't have to see it, or read it.  you just have to know that he was OK once and then he got better, and he hasn't stopped getting better, so maybe you'll get better to if only you simply try.

Write.  Write poorly, then write more and better and don't stop.   And maybe that's the only secret about writing worth knowing.  And it wasn't really all the secret to begin with.

Figuring out this simple truth was meant to be the hard part.

Turns out it's not.  Proving it's true is the hard part.

Damn.  I was really hoping that was the hard part.