Dear Hollywood...

It’s 4 AM as I’m writing this blog and I’m having trouble sleeping. I’m hoping that writing these thoughts will tucker out my skull so I can get back to whatever a normal life is.Let’s see how this goes…

A few days ago I was binging season 6 of Rick and Morty. I thought the series as a whole was better than season 5 but all in all I feel that the series is over. Meaning I no longer care about what happens to any of the characters. There was something missing in the stories. Like the characters were morphed but something other than a character arc. If a character’s point of view or philosophy changes through anything but through the story, it leaves an after taste of deception in the audience’s mouth. Like they used an established character that was built on trust via the story and now it’s being used to tell a different type of story or message that the audience didn’t sign on for. An example might be if there was a new story where Jesus Christ was talking about the benefits of the military industrial complex. A lot of people would reject that story as it would be far from what the original story has said.

This might be reading too far into it all but I always felt that Rick is basically a Gen-X’er who hates everything and has no interest in the modern world. His family represented the new world which Rick constantly mocked. Over the past few seasons it seems like rick is forced to accept how the world works and how his views are increasingly invalid. There’s room for great storytelling in there but it seems to me that his critique which was what brought so much attention to his character, has gone away and morphed into a defensive trait used to avoid any personal growth. To me this switch started around season 4 and that’s what it feels like to me is when the show lost it’s soul.

A friend of mine posted a quick review of the Gotham Knights video game a few days ago in which he said that if you treat the game like a Batgirl game, then it was enjoyable. For those of you who aren’t aware of the story, Batman has been killed and it’s up to the Gotham Knights (Batgirl,Nightwing,Robin and The Red Hood) to take up the mantle of Gotham City’s protectors. Thinking about this premise shined a light on what I see more and more in entertainment, to smash all the idols.

“Hey let’s make a Batman game but without Batman!”

“Hey let’s make some Star Wars movies but lets not use Luke Skywalker too much.”

“Ooo wait! I have an idea! Let’s make a He-Man cartoon but wait for it….we don’t have He-Man in it!”

Maybe it’s because I’m a Gen-X guy myself and like many of my ilk, were taught morality through a mix of religion and Saturday morning cartoons. I think that’s why a lot of us online have such a negative reaction to the characters we grew up with being used to just milk as much money as possible through movies and merchandise. The irony is that nothing has changed in that respect, only the audience has. Maybe we’d feel better if they targeted us to sell to as opposed to a younger audience who doesn’t care about those characters the way us older folks do?

“Hey jackasses! You can’t exploit and manipulate me as an impressionable child in order to get my parents money, then forget about me now that I make my own money! I want you to target me so I’ll spend a bunch of cash about things that really don’t matter!”

Maybe that’s the issue, the industry always wanting the quickest path to the younger market? I don’t have kids of my own so I’m not up on the newest trends and characters. The last storyline that I saw that was anywhere as big as Star Wars and the like was the Harry Potter books.I’m guessing that in ten year’s time a Millenial will expose the Harry Potter series to their kids the way Gen-X exposed their kids to the original Star Wars films and the reaction will be mixed. I think generations want stories to call their own no matter the quality of the previous stories. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, if anything this will keep the fire lit for creative energies.

The problem with adjusting characters for younger generations that at some point you’ll alienate the audience that appreciated the characters and loved them to begin with. I think that’s what happened to a lot of IP (intellectual property) in modern stories. If I were to give a note to the studio heads of all the film studios, I would say that the next executive or producer who brings up the idea of modernizing an existing IP shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near it. Tell them to take that creative energy and put it into a new idea instead of converting someting that’s already been done. I know that’s asking a lot when a studio is investing millions of dollars into a project but look at what they’ve been putting out in the past few years?

Maybe Hollywood is still recovering from the pandemic but the sure thing of a Marvel movie isn’t such a sure thing anymore. Are they running at a loss? Probably not. Are they making the kinds of returns they were 10 years ago? Probably not.

If modern storytelling doesn’t improve I’ll be forced to write a story myself…and it’s going to suck=P

Starbucks Writing 2

You might think I’m a homeless tech guy with the way I dress and set up my table at Starbucks. I’m wearing sweatpants(always a sign for glory and that things are going well), a baggy shirt, and a worn out vest/jacket I mainly use instead  of having pockets.

I sat down and pulled out my phone to answer some texts dealing with guests for the podcast. Then I open a backpack that was left at a house party from over 20 years ago. I pull out my iPad (not bragging) my wireless keyboard. You would think I’d be done but then I have to pop in my earbuds so I don’t hav to listen to anything around me in a public place that I chose to go to. It’s hard to complain about a society that I’m guilty of being a part of.

So the March DisJointed challenge is over. I have to say that even with my surgery, I only missed 4 days out of the month. The purpose was to force myself to spend more time with me instead of delving into a world of distractions. To be honest about it all, I found that once I started an exercise , I really enjoyed the time I spent with my thoughts. It took some discomfort when it came to the meditation sessions but in the end I found I had a lot of static in my skull.

I found that I was disconnected from my reality, in some cases I think this was mind trying to protect me from the harsh reality of my cancer. In its effort to protect me, it also removed me from feeling anything that was happening in my day to day life. One of the reasons I started this challenge was I started to feel my days slip away from me. Each day held  video games, eating, and then napping. I know that sounds enjoyable to some people, and it is. However when a whole week goes by and you have nothing to show for it, guilt is the only thing that starts to be produced on a daily basis. As most of know, guilt like compound interest , only goes stronger by the day.

So here I sit at the end of the challenge and I feel good. I start my radiation therapy this week and I’m looking forward to zapping the shit out of the tumors in my neck! For the past year I didn’t know what was causing the nerve issues, the medicine or the sickness. After he last surgery my nerve issues are 85% better so I think that gave me my answer! I also think that I learned the importance of having something to do on a daily basis. If anything that gave me a sense of purpose. I didn’t realized that is something that can be lost as easily as it can be found. I’m going to continue this challenge until it becomes a daily habit. Something’s happen to us that change us, then there are this things we can do for ourselves that can change us  as well.

Nothing gives the world a middle finger than taking the worst it can give you and you still find a way to make something beautiful with it!

Why is this challenge such a...challenge?

Evening Party People,

I was getting ready to put in some work with some meditation but then I remembered that I’ve done that for two days in a row, so according to the rules I set for myself I needed to either write or exercise. Seeing as I can’t exercise for another week or so, writing it is!

The first time I set a challenge for myself was years ago and the results were definitely noticeable. This time around they seem to be more subtle. The main thing that I’ve gotten out of this is a sense of accomplishment. For those of us adults , high school was the last time we had any expectations put upon us. So it’s kind of seeing an old friend again, I never knew I’d miss this so much.

I was going to add music to the list of options/challenges, the whole point of these was to force myself to spend time with my “artist”. Music has always been a touchy subject with me, certain things I’ve been naturally good at, music was not one of them. It took me along time to build the basic guitar skills that I had. Singing is super difficult for me as he first time I sang infant of people, it didn’t go well at all, that sting has stuck with me since high school. Now with my medical diagnosis I realize that I still have a few songs to finish before it’s my time.

That doesn’t mean I need to finish these songs by next week or anything, I feel great these days, I just know that I don’t have an infinite number of days in front of me like I used to that I had. I mention this because I picked up my guitar today, it had been months not a year since I last held it. My hands are dealing with a lot of numbness due to the tumor on the spinal cord. It made me sad because it felt like the first time I held any guitar as a child, I knew I could do something with it but what I wanted and where I was were years apart. It felt that way again today. I’m not giving up, but I’d be a liar if I said this wasn’t effecting me. So the plan it to spend a small amount off time every day with my guitar so I can build up callouses again. I’m also going to learn some basic chords on my keyboard. If I can remember to work on some vocal technique I might even attempt a music open mic in the next year.

I’m not sure I can do it but I know this hole in me won’t go away by just wishing on it.

Till next time Party People, Keep on a Chooglin’

Starbucks writing

For as long as I’ve been tryin not to be a douche, you think I would have been writing at Starbucks more than I have in my life. I have to admit,it feels nice in here, maybe it’s all the wood? It sounds lame but if you were to have the choice of writing in a trailer with Florence t lighting or a well lit room with wood floors and a fireplace, I think you’d get farther in choice B.

So this is day 4 of the DisJointed Challenge. I spent the first 2 days working on meditation. I would have done it three days in a row but the rules are that I can’t repeat a challenge for more than two days. This keeps me from avoiding a challenge. To be honest (as opposed to lying my ass off to you all) so far I’ve found that my mind has a lot of static in it, if you’ve never tried to meditate before I’ve give you the basic rundown.

Find a place that’s quiet, if you were going to play music, try and keep the volume low so it doesn’t become the main focus. Focus on your breathing and try not to think about anything, I mean ANYTHING. If you’re like me, random thoughts will constantly invade your brain and try to hijack the session. I’m not sure what right or wrong about how I’m doing this but if I can keep my mind quiet for a minute, I find that my life seems less bleak. It sets my perspective at a different angle so to speak. If you’re going through some shit in your own life, you know how hopeless it can feel. A lot of my anger and rage comes from feeling hopeless or weak. Once I get a new way of looking at it all I feel less helpless, like I have another tool to work on the problem. If you’ve never done this I recommend it, let me know how it effected you.

Mental health is a landline of a topic.Many agree that it’s a serious issue that few people want to actually fix or address. What makes it tough is the need for compassion for people that I don’t care for. That’s another big issue, people who don’t want to come off as being heartless tends to be more of a hindrance than help.

Feelings aren’t a static thing, they area choice that we have to make when the question comes into our mind. Meaning if you don’t like someone or day I say hate someone. You don’t hate that person for all eternity, you have o choose to hate them when you think of them. Many of us forget that. As for me, I hate having to admit that there was someone that I don’t like, I feel like a villain, like the “Bad” person, the enemy. So many people that I see let that fear dictate the choices they make, once that happens, we are no longer in the driver seat of our lives. at the very least we let a noisey backseat driver in. For me I have to admit that there is or was hate in my heart for a person, then I have t ask why I felt that way. Was it something they said? Perhaps I was projecting my own shit on another person and I saw something in them that I can’ stand about myself. More often than notI’ll be able to make a choice not to hate that person anymore. I’m not sure if that’s the right way to go but it’s been working for me so far.

Speaking of mental health, I saw an old friend fro ay back talk about a negative experience from their first boyfriend . The jerk had said something negative that is still effecting them to this day. It’s a sad thing to be sure, they part that was upsetting was that I’m 98% sure that I was their first boyfriend. Now did I say what they sad I did? I don’t think so, meaning I have no memory of saying that but then again, I don’t remember every dumb thing I said as a teenager.

I’d write more about this but I need to get ready for a doctors appointment for my next surgery to get more cancer out of my neck. I have to admit, this has been helpful,writing in a coffee shop and all. If I don’t talk to you all for awhile, let me say this to anyone who has every hurt me, thank you. Thank you for being a part of my life, thank you for being a part of a life that I truly love. I’ve never been anything close to a perfect man, I’m super flawed in many areas but I’m also super great at others. I’ve learned so much in this life and I can’t help but smile when I think about it. There was an ex girlfriend named Erin that really did a number on me. Well I shouldn’t say her, the relationship of he and I was not a good thing to put nicely. She was a person that I held a lot of resentment for years. A song called Foundations by Kate Nash put the idea in my head that maybe she was just as powerless to her choices as I was at that time in our lives, that maybe she was caught up in the inertia of her past that dictated what she did,said, and felt. Perhaps she wasn’t some evil force sent to hurt me but half of a couple who had no business being in a relationship.Once I looked at that time in my life like that, I didn’t hate her anymore, I felt compassion for someone who was hurting as much as I was, at that moment she wasn’t an ex, she was a person again.

I wrote her a message via FB telling her about the epiphany, I apologized for my part in the relationship and wished her the best. a year later she responded and wished me the same. I grew from that whole experience, I hope you all find a peace that works for you as well.

Till next time Party People, keep on a chooglin!