Man, Woke Is Definitely Bad

 

The verdict is in, and it's definitely bad. Exhibit A for the nail in the coffin on this is Big Brother.

I've been watching this show since it debuted around 24 years ago. My wife enjoys it too. It's had its ups and downs, but most years it's pretty enjoyable.

Yet the last couple of years they've been getting pretty involved in creating scenes where they can get very preachy about racism or sexism or any other ism they're looking to shine a light on. Thing is, this is Big Brother, not where I go to be educated about that shit.

Most of the time we can just fast forward through those dull and embarrassingly-unsubtle messages.

This year, something happened that just blows my mind. And the fact that everybody, including the person who DID NOTHING WRONG, decided this was a TERRIBLE thing...

Some background, and mind you, these are facts. Not my opinions. Don't believe me, go look it up.

Last year a group of the black contestants in the house decided to form a secret alliance to try to make sure a black contestant won the game, since most of the time they haven't. This alliance was called The Cookout.

They did, in fact, win the game, as one of their members was the winner. And see, I have no problem with this. It's a viable strategy, and clearly worked.

This year, early on, a white player was talking with another white player and debating about whether another "cookout" was forming, as there were some strong black players in the game who seemed to be pretty chummy. This white player debated about whether they should form a white alliance.

Now, no alliances ended up forming based on color, but at one point late in the game it came out that this guy had considered it, and let me tell you--they nearly crucified him for it. Everybody was shouting RACIST stuff at him and saying how they couldn't believe he'd do such a thing.

He even apologized and said he was working real hard on himself blah blah blah. He was booted out of the game that week.

Uhhhhhh...I'm completely open to hearing HOW I'm wrong here, but if people can form an alliance based on a color, then ANY color should be able to form an alliance. That's how you fight racism. Not by overcompensating and saying that white people can't even DISCUSS the notion that the black people might form an alliance and win the game, which is EXACTLY what happened last year.

I know it would be a bad optic if a white alliance formed to beat the black people in the game, but that's all it is--an optic. You cannot on the one hand say "black people can form an alliance, and white people cannot", because THAT is racism, and that's the kind of racism that gets people like me--who are pretty socially progressive--to start pulling away from your side.

The woke-ism wasn't done though. In the end there were two players left standing, a black man and a black woman. The black man was WAY better than the woman, having won more competitions(not even close) and having won the final HOH.

But guess who won the game? The woman, because the women jurors voted for the woman because "it's their time"(that's what one woman said), and then some of the salty jurors(people who were evicted from the house) voted against the guy because he was responsible for kicking them out.

That's right--you're supposed to vote for the best player, not the player you want to win. Yet they did. This happened once before and got me pretty pissed, but this is the end.

I'm not investing 3 months in a show only to watch the lesser-contestant win due to how people feel. All the women really showed is that they were, in fact, inferior in this competition and unable to admit it. If it had been close, I wouldn't have an issue. 

He won 5 competitions to her 2. He evicted the BIGGEST threat to win a few weeks earlier--a guy who was unstoppable, and breaking BB records all over the place. She didn't do much other than cry a lot and pretend she was good at the game.

Anyway, this is going to free up a lot of my time next summer, so that's nice.

--

In other tick-me-off stuff, I get pressured every once in a while by various friends who want me to make another movie. I'm not talking about when someone just asks me if I'm working on something.

I'm talking people who are like "Let's go make a movie" or "You gotta get back out and make another movie."

What these people don't understand is the sheer amount of work involved in finishing a movie that costs under $20K. It's the reason I have to take on so much work to do it--can't pay someone, then I have to do it myself.

I'm not sure if I have it in me anymore.

I'm not saying I'm single-handedly responsible for making all seven movies, though that wouldn't be too far from accurate. I've had some incredible help, and without them I wouldn't have been able to make the films.

But I've spent many lonely nights writing or editing or working on VFX or breaking down schedules or dealing with casting stuff, or going to locations by myself and recreating foley sounds, or going out to the woods to location scout by myself.

 Many many other things that are involved when you can't pay people to do this stuff.

 I'm starting to draw a line. I want a producer, one who can help secure locations and deal with some other headaches. Basically, a ME who's more social that doesn't want to write or direct.

They're hard to come by.

 

Existing Still

 

Forgot to mention, I'd also ordered a costume back-up in case this other costume I'm putting together doesn't work out for whatever reason.

 

This back-up costume arrived and it's pretty great. Made my wife laugh.

 

--

 

Let's talk TV.

 

Like, how bad is that A-zon LOTR series? I tried the first episode but I was tired, so gave up after 15 minutes. Went back to it the next night and got about 40 minutes in before giving up.

 

I don't give a shit about the diversity things that some people are complaining about. On the one hand it's a little ridiculous to imagine that these fantastical made-up races have the same exact genetic mixes as humans do, so I sort of get why the purists are up in arms. 

 

On the other hand, they could cast the entire show with black people and have NO white people, and that would actually make more sense to me than to mix races so that hobbits have the same diversity as humans.

 

Either way, I don't care about that so much. What I DO care about is shitty writing, and this series has a TON of that in the first 40 minutes of episode 1.

 

How many times do we have to hear that the elves don't want Gal to hunt Sauron? I'm not exaggerating when I say that they pound this point over and over, scene after scene, culminating in the scene I finally gave up where a dude tells Gal that the king REALLY doesn't want her to go after Sauron.

 

I was like...holy shit...why are we belaboring this point so bad? Fuck, there's too much to watch on TV to put up with that. Also, the CGI just seems...cheap. I don't know how to explain it, but I then went and moved to the new Game of Thrones series which looks great and is much more interesting than LOTR.

 

The wife and I finished Love Island UK, then pivoted to Big Brother so that we can be up to speed by finale night. We've watched every season of this show except for one, so it's sort of a tradition at this point. Also working on the new seasons of Cobra Kai and Only Murders in the Building.

 

--

 

On the movie/writing front, not much to report. I'm still sporadically working on that book but it will get very hard to write the farther summer gets away. There's one piece of the plot I just haven't figured out, which is the big delay, and then organizing 40 pages of notes will take serious time.

 

But I like a whole lot of what I have, and think people of my age will probably enjoy it. It's chock full of memories and weird 80's anecdotes. 

 

Script-wise, sort of at a standstill. The one script that my mind keeps churning on is the high-concept idea I had a while back that I mentioned to Malf. I'm being very vague on purpose, but the bottom line is that I'm starting this premise by backing myself into a writing-corner, and getting out of it is hard. 

 

I'm taking a pretty worn-out premise and trying to make it something new, but in doing so I'm working very hard to stay away from the cliches involved. 

My other project has been to really finalize that H'ween short story I wrote. Malf had given me some notes to think about. He said it was good already, was confident it could be published as is, but thought with a few tweaks it could be even better.

So I'm trying some of the tweaks to see. Not sure if it's better or not, but it's over 11,000 words so I'm not even sure who would publish it. It's too long for most anthologies.

 

 

H'Ween Comes Early For Me

 

 I decided to start the 'Ween festivities early. Hoping maybe it will help feel like the season is longer, and also I have a lot of stories/books to finish. 

This whole idea occurred to me because I was reading a book of 80's themed short stories and one was set during H'ween. I figured, fuck it, let me read this story and then start on my list of H'ween books. There's definitely more than I could finish in one month unless I did nothing but read.

So started reading one book set during H'ween.

Also, decided that this year I'm not gonna half-ass or re-use a costume. Not positive what I'm doing on 'Ween weekend but I can either go up to Towson to see my buddy's band play in a big 'Ween fest, or do the easy thing which is go to the local bar we usually go to. Still undecided. Will prolly let the wife decide.

Anyway, my big problem is that I'm always looking for a costume that #1) Has a hat #2) I can wear glasses with, so the original person has to be wearing glasses. If they're not, I have to go out without glasses on and my sight isn't great without them.

I lucked onto a costume idea pretty fast. Fit the bill. Now, not everybody is going to know who I am, but anybody's who's friends with me is gonna dig it. Big problem is that nobody makes a costume of this, so I had to buy a bunch of shit from different places. Much of it custom.

I think as it stands I'm at about $500 for this costume. I think I have most of the stuff involved, but there's a couple of things I could add that would be cool. Will consider it.

----

Money has gotten a bit tight, of a sudden. After dumping all that money on the dog, then the puppies, then the conventions, then the couch...I'm getting tapped.

Well, thing is--can't remember if I put it here, but I don't mind oversharing--back when my wife was out of work for a year, we fell behind on our mortgage by about 3 months. Since she was out of work, she didn't tell me she'd stopped paying it, even though I was giving her my half every month.

When I found out she'd stopped paying--and that's the story I thought I might have told you, about the lady coming to my house to photograph it?--I started paying the mortgage online every month myself. Still, we were 3 months behind.

So this month I did the same thing I always do--it asks me whether I want to pay the current payment or the back mortgage. I clicked current payment. You can probably see where this is going.

I find out they took the back payments out of my already-low bank account. I wasn't prepared for that, but I didn't want to reject it so I let it stand.

But now I've gotten down to where I'm REALLY going to buckle down. Screw this eating out twice a week, like, at real restaurants. Fast food, sure. But the last bit of money I'll be spending before Xmas is for the convention next weekend.

After the con, I've got to get into the mindset of the pauper I used to be. No more just buying whatever, or clearing things off of my A-zon list because, why not?

---

Finished season 1 of Stranger Things with the kid. he likes it, and man it's never gonna stop tugging at my heart to see all those 80's stuff. The clothes and the toys and the posters and even the wood paneling in houses.

Prepped for s2, which is at least partially set at 'Ween.

We've been streaming it, even though I own the first two seasons. Figure it can't hurt to help its popularity, because I hear 'Flix is going a Stranger Things universe with other shows and I want them to not skimp on those either.

 

 

Getting Older Redux

 

The next bday is impending. Luckily it's not a number ending in zero, which typically feels worse than the usual. I guess I don't feel significantly worse than last year, and that's the best I can hope for.

The puppies continue to be cute AF. The boy is up to 20 pounds now, the girl is 15. They continue to want to eat every stick, rock, and insect in the yard. No cicada or cricket is safe.

I forgot to mention(I guess) that my wife found a couch she liked at her work. They discounted it for her pretty severely, so I said sure, let's go get it. Then when we got there, the girl working the register knew my wife and pretended that the percentage off should be taken on the ALREADY discounted price, which made it ludicrously cheap.

Was a pain in the ass to get home, and we had to move a lot of stuff because it's much bigger than the other couch. But it's comfortable as hell, and the dogs like it. (other than the girl who at one point decided to pee on it for no reason. She only did it once, so hopefully it won't happen again.)

---

Other night, don't know why, decided I wanted to watch Dragonslayer. I've only seen it once, back when it came out in the theater. I didn't love it. I remember liking the dragon but for some reason I just didn't dig it.

Well here's something crazy. Who made that movie? You'll say Disney, right? So it should be on the Disney channel, right? Nope. It was apparently some sort of joint production with Paramount, which is weird because we all talked about how weird it was that there was a flash of nudity in a Disney movie back then.

Anyway, I can't watch it free on Disney so I had to pay like $2.50 to rent it from Azon. On a second watch, I like it a little better. The dragon's name is still one of the coolest names I've ever heard(Vermithrax) but his "last name" is still pretty stupid(Pejorative). 

I can see a bit why I didn't like it, as I remember not liking the fact that this princess--who risks her own safety for her people even though the king doesn't want her to--gets eaten. The hero fails to save her. Much like my kid's view of movies at 19, at 10 years old I didn't want the good guys in movie to lose.

Started watching Stranger Things with my kid, since he's never seen it. My plan is to blaze through S1 so we're ready to start S2 around Halloween, since that's set near there. Then we have to wait til near July to do S3, since that's a July 4th season. Then the 4th season, maybe I can rope my wife back into it since that's when she stopped.

Then we can maybe all watch the final season together whenever that drops. 

 

Oh God, the Seasons Are Changing

 

Getting cooler...summer is going away, and I hate it.

I know, I know. It's weird, right? Me being the lover of Halloween that I am, but I love summer too. And I know that when it goes away, winter is coming, and that's what I fucking hate.

Every year I hate it more and more. Cold. Windy. And we don't even get any fucking snow any more, which used to be the only good thing about winter.

I have a LOT of Halloween books to read before November hits. Last year I think I only managed two, so I'm going to try harder this time.

---

Surprised my wife this week. She was at the beach. She wanted me to come down over the holiday weekend, but I was busy finishing up a video for the auction company. It ended up being 2 minutes shy of two hours long. A new record for them.

So Monday evening I grabbed the puppies and drove down. Took my work laptop so I could work the next couple of days there.

She was pretty surprised. The weather didn't cooperate much while I was there, raining most of the time I was there.

We hit my favorite restaurants while I was there, though. Then Tuesday night, since it was still raining, we went bowling at the worst bowling alley I've ever been to. We get assigned an alley and they've stuck us right next to people, even though there are open lanes elsewhere.

And the people next to us have kids. These kids keep coming near our lane, not observing etiquette. They're also using those lane bumpers sporadically, so when you're mid-roll, they'd pop out and startle you.

Worse still--and I've never seen this--the pins are held up by strings. I rolled a perfect ball the first throw, and one pin stayed up. I thought, "Hey, tough lane." Then it happened again and again. And that's when I thought--holy shit, the strings that are attached HAVE to have some effect on the pins going down. 

What an absurd set up. Also, sometimes when the pins are resetting--the strings lifting them up to set them down--the strings get tangled, so they have to keep marionetting the pins up and down until they're straight. 

As if that weren't enough, I ordered some sodas. (I said Coke or Pepsi, whatever they had) It came out and I tasted it and it tasted like diet soda. I asked the girl what it was, and she said, "Pepsi." So I tell her it tastes weird, like diet soda. She says she'll get replacements.

The replacements are exactly the same. I tell her we'll just live with it.

Well, she comes back when there's about 15 minutes left on our lane and says, "Hey, turns out someone attached the regular to the Coke Zero, so that's why it tasted like diet."

I'm thinking..."You said this was Pepsi...no way do they have BOTH sodas in this place..." She said she'd bring replacements, but came back as we were putting our shoes back on and told us they couldn't get it to work. She took the sodas off.

Worst. Bowling. Alley. Ever.

I came home Wednesday night and got back to my regular routine.

---

No updates on anything creative wise. I'm still writing that book sporadically. I'm mulling over some ideas for something cheap to shoot, but not really landing anything I'm super excited about.

Went to see Barbarian last night with my brother. Pretty entertaining. I'd go in without watching any trailers or reading anything. Honestly, I didn't even know all of the actors starring in this until I saw the flick.