To Be Like A Cat

To Be Like A Cat
Is One To Catch A Rat
And Catching Of A Rat
Makes One Creep Where One Once Sat

How Ironic Of A Cat That's Fat
That's Love Of The Chase Stops It At Bat

Social Media, Artistic Adolescence, and Higher Ratings For Award Shows

So, this years Oscars have come to a close.

And I think Ellen pulled it off.

It feels silly being a critic about things sometimes. Like I'm somehow qualified to offer an opinion.

But I think in a history of award shows that are notoriously filled with misfires, this one was a good one.

I think as an artistic collective whole, society knows how to execute greatness.

There aren't as many cringe moments that filled shows of recent past.

The artists know how to use the technology to reach the fans, and the fans know how to use the technology to reach the artist.

Ellen's selfie reminded me a lot of Rowan Atkinson's tweet at the London Olympics opening ceremony. The only difference is that Rowan's tweet was something of an Easter egg. It was reported in a couple places, but it wasn't openly known to be done in real time.

That, and the time delay of the Olympics sort of caused issues with the power of that tweet.

But, watching the quick response people had to the selfie, and the Kevin Spacey/Nicholas Cage photoshop jobs that happened minutes of the selfie being taken have really added an new dynamic to the awards show.

In times past, it was hard to get excited for these displays of the self congratulatory. You have this mishmash of the common folk dismissing the awards of the ceremony while you have others who live their dreams of other people during these events.

And social media brings it all together as a huge communal experience in real time.

Even if you don't like the Oscars, you can follow your favorite comedians on Twitter and listen to their own interpretation of events as they unfold.

You can tell that the Internet has helped make these award shows a much more interesting communal event. You have the haters fighting blindly devoted fangirls who want Jennifer Lawrence to win in every category.

The minimalist "fan" posters displayed during the Best Picture Nominees makes you realize how the nerd online influence rubbed off on Hollywood.

And Ellen was in her element. She developed a chemistry with a lot of the Oscar nominees that were interviewed on her talk show, and it shows. The celebrities were used to Ellen goofing on them, so there wasn't this insecurity thing going on when the usual Oscar hosts do their jokes.

So for now, it's good.

See, happy review. Don't mock the monotone nature of positive thinking.

What The Darkness and Silvertide taught me

Picture this:

It's 2004 (I think, give or take a year).

Right now, there's these two groups that are hot on the scene. They have music videos that play on MTV (well, at least one does, the other group has a lot of hype through publications and other media) and a lot of people are convinced that they are destined to be the next big thing.

And, you forward to present day, and they are forgettable. No one remembers that they exist. It's all "Lorde" nowadays (I still wanna know if she makes it or breaks it).

These two groups are The Darkness and Silvertide. They were supposed to be at the forefront of this new rock revival. They had interviewers touting them as the next big thing. They bragged about sleeping in the studio with their guitar in their hand. And I'll be honest, they worked hard.

And then they disappeared. They were shoved in our face, and they evaporated off the face off the Earth.

Where did these people go?

This is an important thing to consider.

In life, you are either really really winning or really really losing. That is, you, like OneRepublic and Imagine Dragons (again, as of this writing) are being shoved in our face until you hope they go away.

Or you, like The Darkness and Silvertide, disappear off the face of the Earth and a handful of people with more IQ points and a longer memory than most people wonder where you went.

You want exposure. Always. There is no such thing as overexposure.

Anyone who tells you otherwise does not deal with things, and they especially do not have real problems. I love fourteen year old me. I do. But he doesn't know about the world like I do. Sometimes I need fourteen year old me to help me cut away from the crap of the industry that I preoccupy myself with, but that's about it.

The Sex Pistols were organized like a boy band. Except, their purpose was to cause as much chaos and destruction as possible.

When you research a lot of individuals that claimed as being "revolutionary", you see that the bourgeois have left their secret touch on their work.

It's evil. I don't like it. But I really hate the opposite effect much more. May you all be sick of me till the day you die.

Let's look at some tips to stop you from suffering the same fate as The Darkness and Silvertide:

Understand that you as an individual, are truly powerful beyond measure. 

This might be hard to understand (hell, it's hard for me to understand) but you can do exponentially more than what you are currently capable of.

You might calculate your own creative output by your surroundings, but your surroundings are overrated.

Your friends are lazy slobs. Believe me, this is true.

If your friends are truly looking out for you (and some do, let's be honest) they will be like Ben Affleck in Good Will Hunting and want you to succeed.

But most won't.

Do you know why reality television is successful?

Reality television is successful because people as a collective whole are mediocre slobs who will never accomplish anything with their life. People as a whole are ratchets who do not have real problems. They complain about situations that they have put themselves in.

They get married to degenerates who cannot clean up after themselves and spend money on idiot things and blame other people for their problems.

People would rather look at Honey Boo Boo and talk about how much better they are than that welfare case as oppose to trying to better themselves.

Paul McCartney and John Lennon had bullies in high school that told them they won't be successful. Does anybody acknowledge those bullies? Hell no, better yet, they're probably dead.

The opinions of idiots are overrated. Let it not cloud you on the road to success.

Silvertide was touring with Aerosmith. M. Night Shyamalan put their songs in his movies. They probably had friends who never did that. They thought they had it made. They felt guilty to do more. That damaged them.

It might take you a while to figure out who you are and want you want, but it is completely worth it. Knowing what you want and getting it is the true definition of success.

Let's look at two different artists who made giant changes in their respected mediums, and look at their body of work as a whole.

We will first look at Alfred Hitchcock.

I hate it when people tell me that their favorite Hitchcock film is Psycho. That is such a slap in the face to a man who has revolutionized cinema.

Do you realize that 51 films of Hitchcock's were created before he ever made Psycho?

He made silent films and went all the way to the gritty/nihilistic tones of the 70s.

Do you realize that his best work was yet to come? That his Kaleidoscope project was supposed to be the craziest thing ever, and it never happened?

Hitchcock made his first film when he was 23. It was called Number 13, and it was a disaster because the budget fell through. This was in 1922, when saying you wanted to make a film was like saying you wanted to fly to the moon. An impossible dream for most people.

And he went out and he did it. Fifty years worth of filmmaking. The definition of full potential. Remember that when you're struggling to make a feature.

And he didn't care for naysayers. He threw his tea kettle at them.

The other group I want to talk about, are The Beatles.

Paul McCartney played with The Quarrymen with John Lennon when he was fourteen and he kept playing since.

Hamburg. Beatlemania. Going fully Psychedelic. Wings. Plastic Ono Band. My Sweet Lord.

At this point in my life, I would advise that an artist do everything he has ever wanted to do ever. Like The Beatles.

Get in trouble. Be financially successful. Be financially unsuccessful. Be financially successful when you have been previously financially unsuccessful so you know how good you have it.


Avoid Caucasian Thinking

I have this new term. It's a term that explains a certain mindset I have been coming across a lot lately. I call it "Caucasian Thinking". It's what white people do. It annoys me. White people hear a growling sound in the jungle and they go explore it until the source of the growling sound bites their face off.

In this case, Caucasian Thinking applies to success. White people love it when successful people implode on themselves.

Kurt Cobain is the biggest example of this.

White people love being sad with being plentiful. White people problems, remember this.

White people are afraid of success. They have guilt and feel awkward about everything.

White people hate it when other people are successful. They talk a lot of smack. Understand that when I say "White people", I don't just mean people with a challenged pigment, but people who gather around a certain mindset.

White people will make you feel guilty about your success. They will tell you to donate money you made on your own to idiot causes they don't participate in. They will make you feel bad about buying stuff that you enjoy. White people want you to learn about the history of everything Beethoven ate for breakfast before they want you to spit bars on your own album.

White people will sit behind a computer and call you a has-been when they were a never-was.

You're supposed to make money. You're supposed to move things. Diss anyone who tells you otherwise.

Again, avoid the thinking of passive aggressive white people. It only holds you back.

There was another artist coming up during Darkness/Silvertide who made his mark and completely changed/destroyed the music industry.

His name was 50 Cent.

50 Cent was different than The Darkness/Silvertide. One, 50 Cent had real problems. Shot nine times, you know the deal. When a record company hosted a field day when they decided to let artists openly use their studios, 50 Cent came out and recorded 36 songs when most people attending recorded 3-5. He had a purpose in life. In 50's mind, he's already dead.

50 don't play. When he sees an opportunity to make money, he goes for it. Vitamin Water. And that's why he's still around. If he actually liked movies and didn't see them as a solely financial opportunity, he'd be good at that too.

50 pays no mind to the haters complain about his current status of wealth. You need haters in life.

I don't want to make this seem like this is something that only happens in hip hop.

Let us remember that back in the 70s, Gene Simmons made sure to make KISS release an album every six months. Gene Simmons may be an individual with a disagreeable attitude, but he knew how to keep his band alive.

And really, let's be honest, you're either two things as an artist: You're either Gene Simmons or you're Pussy Riot.

Pussy Riot was offered the chance to get out of a Russian jail and perform with Madonna and they said no, because they only perform music as a symbol of protest and refuse to indulge the capitalist system when they make music. They don't charge money for shows. That's more punk rock than Fugazi.

Are you willing to adopt this lifestyle?

I don't think so.

That being the case, let us all be honest and accept the fact that we do believe in merchandising. Now, it doesn't mean you have to wear a suit and tie when you do these things but understand that the ability to maintain the rock star myth is expensive, and if you have to get a corporate sponsor to do what you want, so be it.

If the company that makes a beverage that I enjoy contacts me asking to sponsor an event where they will serve a beverage I'm apt to enjoy anyway, you best believe I will let them in. It will be ridiculous to do otherwise.

It's okay to mess up in life. Maybe you sellout, realize what you've done, and come to doing what you do best. I think people need that.

And I don't know about you, but that sounds like fun.

The Problem With Horror

You know, I've been going through what one might call a "creative drought" over the past couple of months.

Nah, I'm just as creative as I always have been. But I feel like anything I work on won't be reciprocated. Like, you can work on something and all you get is a shrug. What was once time spent working on an amazing thing just feels like another thing on the shelf.

I also feel like I can't just make things anymore. Everything that comes out nowadays has to be part of some larger organization. You can't just make a film, you have to be on some political crusade.

It would be okay if it happened organically. You made a movie about chemicals in a preschool drinking fountain, and it morphs into this larger movement. But I don't think pop stars should turn a single that's supposed to be in the club into some false moral movement that they pay lip service to without doing a damn thing about the actual problem.

Even in the creation of a horror movie, society wants you to be this goth type of thing. And they want you to make some screamo comments at conventions, and say things like "horror is my life".

When did this become a lifestyle?

And even then, I'm not asking filmmaking to be your religion, I am asking you to finish your screenplay.

It seems as though the quality of horror films have faced a decline following this need to adopt this faux lifestyle.

Think of best films in the horror genre. Now, think about the directors who made them. Were they covered in body modifications?

Hell, let's name a film made with someone with body modifications. The number is slim. Rob Zombie doesn't count, he was a musician first. He had a career that investors felt secure about.

Honestly though, if you have an entire body's worth of horror movie tattoos, you officially cannot complain about the budget of your film ever again. Cause you clearly do not know how to spend your money. How am I supposed to get investors with Freddy Krueger tattooed on my face?

It makes no sense.

Frankly, I think this new oddity commodity culture is destroying the ability for an artist to focus. That's not including the idiot organizations who have nothing else better to do but complain about how much something you've worked on "offended them". We get it, you're a recovering alcoholic with too much time on your hands, and now your blaming us for all the things that make you feel miserable in your life.

Now, maybe I'm being a hater, but I'm pretty sure David Lynch's films present a fear that no body modification can express. But that's just me.

Then of course, we are now in this endless slow news day created by a million idiots on social media who need something to talk about.

Nirvana would not be able to happen in this current Internet cultural climate. One of Kurt Cobain's publicists would force Kurt Cobain to apologize for talking smack about Axl Rose. Music executives would scramble to do damage control as Cobain lost thousands of followers after engaging in crazy rock star behavior. His manager would also make him sing with Rihanna at some award show.

Ozzy Osbourne would anger both conservatives and animal rights activists.

We went from freely being rebellious to being a miniature tyrant on ourselves. Sid Vicious would be confused.

How are we both annoying and inoffensive?

What is this bizarro place?

Time

It's really hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that 2004 was ten years ago.

I'm still playing with my Game Boy Advance SP.

I remember when the Game Boy Advance was this new amazing thing.  I remember thinking about waiting for the price to go down.

Do you ever look at ads for 90s gaming consoles in the $300-$500 range? It freaks you out sometimes.

As the future quickly becomes the past, as the things you are planning becomes the things you are remembering, I think it shows how silly it is to wait for the future.

I remember being in fourth grade and wondering about the state quarters. California was supposed to come in 2005. I wondered what the world would be like in 2005. That was pre-9/11.

I also want to think about all the false predictions that have come and gone, and how people have wasted their entire lives waiting for some pseudo-supernatural premonition.

Y2K.
2012.
Fiscal Cliff.
Sequestration.
Anything else government related that the media makes a giant hulabaloo out of.
The failed predictions of terrorist attacks that would lead us into war with Iran.

I have realized at this point in my life that if anything truly bad happens with the economy, the people in power will have to hurry up and fix it, or someone's head is going on the guillotine. I don't think the idea that people will blindly go into the FEMA camps will come true.

It's hard enough to make people evacuate an area knowing full well a hurricane is going to destroy their land. If people will openly defy mother nature, I don't think they will listen to the government.

In the history of world, displacements of poverty similar to that of France before their revolution and Weimar Republic Germany have always been the catalysts of larger military conflicts.

While the new displacement of people following the recession has led to people embracing alternative political ideas, as seen by both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street, this factions lack clear goals which disables them from enacting reform.

And yet, all this comes down to, is Chicken Little. The sky is falling. They've been telling us this since forever. Old books about how the Antichrist will rise in the U.N. while the Soviet Union invades us. It's that old Biblical fear.

And I think that old Biblical fear, I think that fear of the future is what holds people back.

Society does not live in the wilderness. We are not engaged in some hundred years war. There's food in the pantry, in the dumpster at the fast food joint if you're really that desperate.

I believe it was Sam Kinison who said "if you can't get your act together in America, where else are you supposed to get it together?". He also made the point that America would probably be the best place to be if you found yourself at the wrong end of an economic displacement.

I know telling people who think this is the end that the sky is not falling will not convince them, so I will say this instead.

Yes, the sky is falling. What have you done to prepare for it?

Do you grow your own food? Do you have your own emergency supplies? Do you tell those important people in your life that you care about them?

If you haven't done these things yet, don't you think it would be a larger priority than to scream in an argument with a friend that you have now made an enemy?

And to those people hiding out in the woods: Do you really wanna spend the rest of your lives that way?

Is there not something else you wish you had done?

Media Circus Nostalgia

Ahh...Justin Bieber.

You finally did it.

Hell, you set it up in storytelling beats. You had your henchman set up little conflicts before launching the main event.

People talked about it for a while, things went in motion, but now it begins.

There's no way you can get out of this unscathed. You're not Heisenberg. You're not witty like Robert Downey Jr.

They might give you celebrity treatment, but it's only fuel to the flame.

It's a weird corner to be in: Like, no one respects your antics, and the teen girl audience that adored you are being hushed away by their parents.

The weirdest thing about all of this is that it still doesn't feel rebellious, just stupid. Like, Bieber wants to be this bad boy, but it isn't working. It's not who he is. He's Canadian. Any Canadian engaging in immoral behavior just looks embarrassing. Ask Rob Ford. Bumbaclot, eh?

But I will say this, I'm not going to pretend to be above the scandal.

There's a lot of evil stuff going on in the world, and this is being used as a distraction from that.

Now, can all those evil things be depressing sometimes? Yes.

Al Qaeda is occupying Fallujah. Would you like me to talk about Fallujah? No, I can hear you yawning already.

It was a lot like how Michael Jackson's issues were a distraction from the Iraq War.

You have to admit, there's something very...I think the term would be..."spectator enriching" about celebrity meltdowns.

Remember how Wacko Jacko was? I remember people in school checking their cell phones for updates (this was when the idea of using your cell phone to check for the news was somewhat of a novelty concept). I remember being in the gym finding out about his innocence.

A lot of stuff happened back in the day. A lot of stuff I have should have forgotten about. But I still remember that.

I think the celebrity meltdown is slowly filling the void that tentpole cinema used to inhabit.

I remember when Spielberg's movies were huge. They were a cultural event. Society seemed to change with each Spielberg film. Jurassic Park. Hell, even the opening day of Lost World was pretty awesome.

And it sort of happens these days, but the movies they push into an event are always kind of lame. Hunger Games might be the exception, but a movie based on a book about kids killing each other is not something that's going to keep being a norm.

Nah, celebrity meltdowns are the new events. You can't make a film out of it, meltdowns happen in real time. It's fun to watch on social media.

And every tabloid feels like a site in some expanded universe. The melting artist's body of work takes new meaning due to new incidents.

Honestly though, celebrity meltdowns capture what was once so special about the early days of cinema. When Gone With the Wind was in theaters, it was an event. It represented what was going on with people at the time. That can't be replicated now. I can just catch the film on Netflix later.

Looking back, I remember where I was when certain celebrity meltdowns happened.

It's something memorable that you can talk with your buddies about without having to worry about people getting hurt, which the exception of certain pedestrians and bystanders during DUI instances.

Is it going to be sad if Justin endangers himself? Yeah. But there isn't much anyone can do about at this point. He's an adult, with a large disposable income. He can take care of himself.

He's gonna need to in the next couple of months.

Sitting Back And Enjoying Myself (or Why Child Stars Have Meltdowns)

You know, I really wanna do something big with this blog.

Something kind of fun. It's funny when you have goals that are based on abstract emotional feelings. Makes it kind of hard to set goals.

I went in, read all of these books, websites, and pamphlets and I realized that I didn't even know how I got here in the first place.

Things sort of seem to go in a blur. Do I remember creating 52 Stickup? I do.

I remember there were days when I did not enjoy it. Days when I look back and I wish I did things differently. I just wanted to do something webcomic-wise. I had seen all these so called "indie" artworks that took pride in the fact that they were lo-fi, and I wanted to do something like that.

And so, Stickup was born. And Stickup is done.

Could I decide to do something like that again in the future? I mean, it's possible, but I've got a bunch of ideas in my head, so it would have to come from necessity.

You know, I think we as a society forget how cinema minded we truly are. We mock every step that leads up to the finished product, mocking actors as vain, and scorn Hollywood for being phony, but oftentimes we forget that the films we cherish were created in those same bemoaned circumstances.

We factor all those things in after the fact. You watch documentaries on Star Wars where a storm wipes out the desert sets, and you think it wouldn't be a big deal since it was Star Wars, but you fail to comprehend what a giant nightmare that was for everyone involved.

I know it's this cool thing to do now where people complain about the lack of originality in Hollywood.

But all of those complaints were done by people who never wrote and directed a movie before. It's wonderful to be a novelist. A novelist is a mad scientist. A lone creature in some cave etching out some sorcery. And a director has their own pride. A director is a general.

They lead their crew into battle, spend all night plotting things out, preparing the worst but hoping for the best, even improvising against new obstacles.

To be both a general and a mad scientist can be a frightening task. It takes a special discipline to do both. It's why George Lucas suffered hypertension directing Star Wars.

It's coming up with your greatest romantic fantasy, and trying to watch normal people replicate it for you. It can be easy to watch your dreams mesh and turn into some otherworldly Lynchian nightmare. And if you're lucky, that's the best case scenario.

But you do it. And you do it because that's what you want to do. You do it because it's who you are.

There's nothing worse than suffering through the creative process ending up with something no one wants under the impression that you were supposed to win more adoration by not being true to yourself.

This is a new game I like to play:

It's called figuring out what project caused the child star to snap

Miley Cyrus. Amanda Bynes.

I don't think Miley has what you call a "meltdown". She's lashing into adolescence. That's all that is. That girl you know across the street experimenting with being goth. Like that, but on a larger scale. Why that's so hard to comprehend, I'm not really sure. It's promotion. It is what it is.

But, I think I've figured it out.

The next time some lovable Disney/Nickelodeon freaks out, go to their Imdb/Wikipedia page and look at the projects they were working on.

Nine times out of ten, what they were working on doesn't look like admirable material.

Making one film is exhausting enough. Going through a cycle of films, probably a couple before that they didn't enjoy either, does things to one's mental health. So, you have people who were forced to be actors, who don't enjoy acting, working on films that they don't enjoy.

All of the ammunition for rebellion are laid right there.

Can you imagine what horrible people we would all be if our high school drama was covered by a tabloid? What did you think was going to happen?

This goes again to a motif I've repeated for the last couple of times. It all goes back to Christopher Nolan who said that the quality of a film comes back to sincerity, like the "person making the film feels like it is the greatest movie ever made".

The Mileys, and the Amandas, and the (insert next one) probably did not want to be in the film industry. Pretty sure. They were doing favors for their parents.

You ever see someone trying to fulfill some legacy that doesn't fit them? It's saddening.

The child stars that made it big, the Leonardo DiCaprios, the Joseph Gordon-Levitts, they wanted to be actors. It was enough motivation for them to go through all the difficulties that comes with making a film.

A lot of child stars get to this point where they don't enjoy the craft, but they love fame and whatever hedonistic pleasures that comes with it.

I wonder if Corey Feldman would make a film of his that has a strong vision to it. A drive.

If not, it might just be a job. Which isn't bad. A lot of people work jobs that they hate.

But that has to suck. When you churn out twelve films a year, wouldn't you at least want to make one that's good? Even if you work at a job you hate, wouldn't you have fun with yourself at work every once in a while?

It seems like a horrible vicious circle of people being forced into hateful career choices.

You have a parent telling their child not to pursue their dream. They listen. They hate their life. They hate themselves.

And so, this person grows up and forces their kids to live out their dream. And that becomes the disaster that that is.

And the spectators and the bystanders talk smack when actors openly say that this is something that they don't wanna do.

Again, so much culture is beamed down onto us, mostly because the West turns more and more into a consumer/commodity exporter everyday that we somehow pretend to know what being a performer is like.

Which isn't to say we should act as some white knight each time a celebrity acts up. No, that is not what this is. That is not truthful. But, we need to figure out how to solve this problem without going in with this uninformed conception of what life in the public eye appears to be.

I decided to just sit down and write today. I didn't want to do some target assignment thing. No, that doesn't get it done. Why would I even do that? What fun is there in doing that? There's no endgame to that.

I'll be completely honest with you: as much as I think writing a novel might be fun in the future, the writing community annoys me. I can't honestly enjoy myself in that environment. They are a bunch of individuals who will punish me for my enthusiasm. I can't deal with that.

I'd rather go H.A.M. I'd rather throw money, sweat, and time into some James Farr/Freddie Wong multimedia event. But you know that just baits the haters.

You need to accept that. Every hero's journey comes with adversity. Yours will not be any different. Everyone you have looked up to has faced the same challenges.

So, you need to go out and do what makes you happy. At least take the chance once.