Why is it that when the end of a long run is nigh, there are those people who would still rather skip corners or take blind shortcuts because they don't want to struggle up hill for a few more minutes? I live with my parents and we are finally in sight of a little relief because my sister and her two children moved out. This cut many of our bills in half. But, my parents don't want to have to struggle for even one minute, it seems. Twice a month, I borrowed money, grudgingly, from one of those awful check-into-loan places. We'd get $190 dollars and have to pay back $230. We lost forty dollars each time, which is eighty dollars a month or $960 a year. We were losing $1000! I hated it. But, for the most part, we did it because the bills wouldn't wait another five days because they were due (*cough* behind *cough*). Now they are all caught up except one, which will be caught up by March 5 if we just struggle for the next few days.
We just have to get through the next three days until my father gets paid on Friday, then everything will be all right. But, we don't really have many options and money is tight. We have food but we'll have to make some crazy, surprise, make-em-up kind of meals out of it. We have gas, but it means that all other people will have to be told "NO!" when they ask us to take them to their girlfriend's, then to work, then to their house, then back to their girlfriend's, etc.
But you see, my parents don't want to have to worry about struggling. So, they want me to go get another check-loan thing so we can buy some groceries but then we'll lose out on that $230 we would have to buy groceries on Friday. Why can't we just wait a few days and struggle and get out from under lost money? I ate cheese, summer sausage, and crackers every day for dinner for my first month of grad school. It sucked but I lived.
Anyway, I refused to go get the loan. My father threw a fit and my mother cried, but you know what? It had to be done. I told them that if we never did it - if we always said, "Maybe this will be the last time," it really never would be the last time. So I'm saying, "The last time, it was the last time. We'll live."
February 22, 2010
February 21, 2010
Big Words
I'm reading a book about hitchhiking called Riding with Strangers: A Hitchhiker's Journey by Elijah Wald. I can't tell you the page because I'm reading it on my Kindle PC, but somewheres about 75% of the way through the book he uses the word lagniappe.
February 18, 2010
Sylvia Plath, Aldous Huxley, and Freddie Mercury
My reading goal this week was to read two relatively short books. The first was Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. I enjoyed it well enough. I can see its significance but didn't find myself ripping through the pages worried about what would become of the narrator. I did very much love the similes she used throughout. It was charged with a lot of breakthroughs for its time period, with raw descriptions of depression and sexual revolution and the true meaning of asylum. I would personally give it a "C," though I think it important for every generation to read to understand how far we've come and how much farther we need to go as far as understanding our own psychologies.
The second book was Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. It's been a long time since I've had to abandon a book. I just cannot read this. I have never been the biggest fan of science fiction, especially that which depicts an elitist future. I think it's that I get too angry and I don't want to spend the whole of a book being too angry. A professor gave me Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale for my birthday one year and I tried to read it but had to stop. It's on my list of books to read this year, but I'm dreading it.
Right now I'm watching live concerts of Queen on Youtube. Freddie Mercury was the greatest performer. I really do wish at times I was a gay man. I found myself singing along with crowd - Freddie Mercury always used to lead the crowd in doing some trilling and the crowd would try to mimic him as closely as possible. I had to participate. Long live Freddie.
The second book was Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. It's been a long time since I've had to abandon a book. I just cannot read this. I have never been the biggest fan of science fiction, especially that which depicts an elitist future. I think it's that I get too angry and I don't want to spend the whole of a book being too angry. A professor gave me Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale for my birthday one year and I tried to read it but had to stop. It's on my list of books to read this year, but I'm dreading it.
Right now I'm watching live concerts of Queen on Youtube. Freddie Mercury was the greatest performer. I really do wish at times I was a gay man. I found myself singing along with crowd - Freddie Mercury always used to lead the crowd in doing some trilling and the crowd would try to mimic him as closely as possible. I had to participate. Long live Freddie.
February 16, 2010
Writer's Block
Oh-my-friggin'-god...I'm going to call myself an artist.
Because that's what I am. I'm an artist. I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Not just Arts - Fine Arts. I'm a fine artist. Except, I've abandoned my art because I've become a little yellow scaredy pussy cat. "Are you sure this was written at the graduate level?" she asked. "It feels like undergraduate writing to me." And my first (and current) inclination was to say, "Where do you draw that line?" Because I knew a good deal of undergraduate writers whose art blew the socks off of some graduate writing. Off of most graduate writing, really.
It wasn't about my writing, though. It was about putting me in a class of writers because I enjoyed playing with that red-headed step-sister we all know as "genre writing."
Fucking literati.
It's a problem with the writing programs in general. They are brainwashing writers into using the same dull, safe techniques in order to be considered "literature" as opposed to "mainstream" or the dreaded "formulaic." Um, I really hate (love) to tell them this, but when I've cracked open the past few years' worth of the Best American Short Stories I can't help but feel all of the stories are so...FORMULAIC. I feel like I can open any page and read it, then skip ahead to a totally different, random story and it's as though I never stopped reading the first story. They all want to talk about the psychology of their mundane lives, or the pain of trauma A, or the details of trauma B...blah blah blah!
I love trauma. My characters are always cliched-ly abused or perverted in some way. I know I fall into this habit, as well. But isn't there an interesting way to weave it into a captivating story anymore? Are we past the point where we want adventure, or entertainment, or fantasy when we read? Are we past the point where those things can mean intelligence instead of immaturity? In the world of graduate writing programs, the answer is "yes." The lady from the second paragraph, the one who had to make a distinction between graduate and undergraduate writing, said that Harry Potter isn't deep or complex. Pardon? This, of course, led to my infamous retort to her that made all of my classmates go "OHHHHHH." I don't even remember what I said because I was so angry. After this conversation, she took every advantage to make me feel like I didn't deserve to be there anymore. Which, for a long time, I began to believe.
You wanna know the formula for current literature?
Small town + trauma + feelings = literature.
Slice-of-life. Ugh. Double Ugh. I'm fully aware this may be my preference for epics coming through, but I know I've read exciting slice-of-life fiction and this current crop of writing ain't exciting. Earlier in one of my posts I talked about the Virgin Suicides, which follows the formula and is still riveting.
Small Ohio town + multiple suicides + narrator's feelings = fuckin' awesome.
I think here it is the absolute obsession of the narrator with what went wrong, and the fact that we are removed from the actual feelings of the sisters, that make this story so engaging. We won't ever really know why the girls committed suicide, we can only speculate, we are only given clues. The story isn't told from the "I" point of view. The boys in town are telling their obsessive "we" point of view.
I feel like every current short story is "I." Because that's the narrator who can tell his own feelings best.
Maybe I can't just talk about feelings. Maybe I have to be cryptic. Maybe I feel all icky and maybe I feel like it's telling instead of showing and maybe I feel like that goes against the grain of good storytelling and maybe I feel like people can't understand someone else's feelings unless they're shown where those feelings came from in the greatest detail possible. Current short stories...all they do is give the least amount of detail possible to set a scene so it can showcase all the FEELINGS the characters are experiencing.
And so, for a long time, I tried to write about feelings. I tried to mimic those stories in the Best American Short Stories, because a book called about editing told me I should do this. Well, what it tells writers is that a writer should follow all of the advice these two editors (who wrote the editing book) give in the book if you ever want to be published, and then they go on to give examples of writers who did what they were told and got published, and writers who did not do what they were told and got nothing. And then...AND THEN...they take excerpts from The Great Gatsby and re-write them using their advised techniques to show how the book could have been better.
To show how The Great Gatsby could have been better. With their help.
And you know what? After they laid their hands on those books and stories and the Great Gatsby each piece of writing lost all of its character.
But I thought, what if this is what I have to do to get published? What if this is what I have to do to be called "serious?" What if I have to abandon my own voice in order to have any voice at all? I was scared.
No fucking more.
I will do as I please.
Watership Down reminded me of what I love to read and why I love to read it. I tease my best friend about her romance novels, but in the end I understand what they give her. What did a book about rabbits give me? Adventure and suspense and characters I gave a damn about. They, in effect, ceased to be rabbits and by that point the story is all that mattered and it was a BRILLIANT story. So is Harry Potter. So is The Dark Tower series. The rabbits are a metaphor for survival, war, and brotherly love. Harry Potter is a symbol of the abilities of everyday human beings who aren't really all that "special" but are clever and heroic. Roland is an obsessive, abused, smart man who feels he must save the world and feels he must personally lose everything to do so. How are those things less artistic than: Watership Down vs. Animal Farm; Harry Potter vs. The Old Man and the Sea;
The Dark Tower vs. The Grapes of Wrath?
But all of the second entries in each comparison are considered "literature." NO FUCKING MORE. I think there is some kind of unspoken rule that if you enjoy the book, grotesquely enjoy it, it is not allowed to be literature. I have decided not to care. I have decided that if I enjoy reading about an 800,000-year-old cybernetic bear who is taken down by a gunslinger and his white, heroin-addicted sidekick and in turn his black amputee lover, I will enjoy writing said sort of story and, therefore, others will enjoy reading my story. Will these stories win me a Pulitzer Prize? Nope, not in a million years. Is that what I'm giving up to save the world? I believe so. I believe art cannot be homogenized anymore. Something must be done. It looks like I'm going to be the one who does it.
Longest. Post. Ever. (not really)
Because that's what I am. I'm an artist. I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Not just Arts - Fine Arts. I'm a fine artist. Except, I've abandoned my art because I've become a little yellow scaredy pussy cat. "Are you sure this was written at the graduate level?" she asked. "It feels like undergraduate writing to me." And my first (and current) inclination was to say, "Where do you draw that line?" Because I knew a good deal of undergraduate writers whose art blew the socks off of some graduate writing. Off of most graduate writing, really.
It wasn't about my writing, though. It was about putting me in a class of writers because I enjoyed playing with that red-headed step-sister we all know as "genre writing."
Fucking literati.
It's a problem with the writing programs in general. They are brainwashing writers into using the same dull, safe techniques in order to be considered "literature" as opposed to "mainstream" or the dreaded "formulaic." Um, I really hate (love) to tell them this, but when I've cracked open the past few years' worth of the Best American Short Stories I can't help but feel all of the stories are so...FORMULAIC. I feel like I can open any page and read it, then skip ahead to a totally different, random story and it's as though I never stopped reading the first story. They all want to talk about the psychology of their mundane lives, or the pain of trauma A, or the details of trauma B...blah blah blah!
I love trauma. My characters are always cliched-ly abused or perverted in some way. I know I fall into this habit, as well. But isn't there an interesting way to weave it into a captivating story anymore? Are we past the point where we want adventure, or entertainment, or fantasy when we read? Are we past the point where those things can mean intelligence instead of immaturity? In the world of graduate writing programs, the answer is "yes." The lady from the second paragraph, the one who had to make a distinction between graduate and undergraduate writing, said that Harry Potter isn't deep or complex. Pardon? This, of course, led to my infamous retort to her that made all of my classmates go "OHHHHHH." I don't even remember what I said because I was so angry. After this conversation, she took every advantage to make me feel like I didn't deserve to be there anymore. Which, for a long time, I began to believe.
You wanna know the formula for current literature?
Small town + trauma + feelings = literature.
Slice-of-life. Ugh. Double Ugh. I'm fully aware this may be my preference for epics coming through, but I know I've read exciting slice-of-life fiction and this current crop of writing ain't exciting. Earlier in one of my posts I talked about the Virgin Suicides, which follows the formula and is still riveting.
Small Ohio town + multiple suicides + narrator's feelings = fuckin' awesome.
I think here it is the absolute obsession of the narrator with what went wrong, and the fact that we are removed from the actual feelings of the sisters, that make this story so engaging. We won't ever really know why the girls committed suicide, we can only speculate, we are only given clues. The story isn't told from the "I" point of view. The boys in town are telling their obsessive "we" point of view.
I feel like every current short story is "I." Because that's the narrator who can tell his own feelings best.
Maybe I can't just talk about feelings. Maybe I have to be cryptic. Maybe I feel all icky and maybe I feel like it's telling instead of showing and maybe I feel like that goes against the grain of good storytelling and maybe I feel like people can't understand someone else's feelings unless they're shown where those feelings came from in the greatest detail possible. Current short stories...all they do is give the least amount of detail possible to set a scene so it can showcase all the FEELINGS the characters are experiencing.
And so, for a long time, I tried to write about feelings. I tried to mimic those stories in the Best American Short Stories, because a book called about editing told me I should do this. Well, what it tells writers is that a writer should follow all of the advice these two editors (who wrote the editing book) give in the book if you ever want to be published, and then they go on to give examples of writers who did what they were told and got published, and writers who did not do what they were told and got nothing. And then...AND THEN...they take excerpts from The Great Gatsby and re-write them using their advised techniques to show how the book could have been better.
To show how The Great Gatsby could have been better. With their help.
And you know what? After they laid their hands on those books and stories and the Great Gatsby each piece of writing lost all of its character.
But I thought, what if this is what I have to do to get published? What if this is what I have to do to be called "serious?" What if I have to abandon my own voice in order to have any voice at all? I was scared.
No fucking more.
I will do as I please.
Watership Down reminded me of what I love to read and why I love to read it. I tease my best friend about her romance novels, but in the end I understand what they give her. What did a book about rabbits give me? Adventure and suspense and characters I gave a damn about. They, in effect, ceased to be rabbits and by that point the story is all that mattered and it was a BRILLIANT story. So is Harry Potter. So is The Dark Tower series. The rabbits are a metaphor for survival, war, and brotherly love. Harry Potter is a symbol of the abilities of everyday human beings who aren't really all that "special" but are clever and heroic. Roland is an obsessive, abused, smart man who feels he must save the world and feels he must personally lose everything to do so. How are those things less artistic than: Watership Down vs. Animal Farm; Harry Potter vs. The Old Man and the Sea;
The Dark Tower vs. The Grapes of Wrath?
But all of the second entries in each comparison are considered "literature." NO FUCKING MORE. I think there is some kind of unspoken rule that if you enjoy the book, grotesquely enjoy it, it is not allowed to be literature. I have decided not to care. I have decided that if I enjoy reading about an 800,000-year-old cybernetic bear who is taken down by a gunslinger and his white, heroin-addicted sidekick and in turn his black amputee lover, I will enjoy writing said sort of story and, therefore, others will enjoy reading my story. Will these stories win me a Pulitzer Prize? Nope, not in a million years. Is that what I'm giving up to save the world? I believe so. I believe art cannot be homogenized anymore. Something must be done. It looks like I'm going to be the one who does it.
Longest. Post. Ever. (not really)
February 11, 2010
Violently Ill
Well, I haven't posted in a while because I've been incredibly sick. A flu went around my family and I laid in bed for about three days and ate nothing but popsicles. I didn't eat anything from 1:30 p.m. last Monday until the evening last Wednesday. Then I didn't have an appetite for a few days so I ate like a little bird. I lost about four pounds.
Anyway, last week I didn't read the book I was supposed to but I did this week. Hilariously, I read 300 pages of it in one seven-hour period. The last time I read 300 pages in one sitting was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This time, the book was Watership Down .
I've always wanted to read it because I disturbingly look back fondly on watching the movie when I was little. Disturbing because it was bloody and frightening although one redeeming quality was Art Garfunkel singing a song called "Bright Eyes" at the end when the Black Rabbit comes to get Hazel. I played the song in my head at the end of the book.
The book reminded me of everything I love about reading. It's a straightforward journey with a protagonist, obstacles, and a climactic fight. I really wanted to know what happened next at every turn. I also cared incredibly for the characters. Like I said a while back, it's hard to read a book when you don't care about the characters in it.
And it reminded me of a lesson I've learned about writing, one I impart to my students - particularly those who try to write fantasy. Here it is: the language and dialogue does not have to be Old English or fancy or anything of the sort. It can be everyday language. It can include colloquialisms. It can be "wrong" for its time period. I've always had a problem with this. I don't want to read a lot of jargon I have to decode to understand. Furthermore, no matter how the dialect, accent, and language would have actually sounded, to those who speak it and those who hear it on a daily basis nothing sounds out of the ordinary and to their ears it sounds like "normal" speech. And don't get me started on American actors trying to do accents - please, Hollywood, stop it now.
Anyway, in the book, a sea gull says "Piss off!" and though you do have to be paying attention to the "Lapine" (rabbit language) in the book (so there is, in fact, a bit of this problem in it) at one point you realize one rabbit says "Eat shit and die!" to another rabbit. It cracked me up when I figured it out, which didn't take long because I had been paying attention. In John Gardner's Grendel , a retelling of Beowulf from the monster's point of view, the monster, old as the Earth itself almost, says "fuck" and I believe maybe even "dude." I love it. This is okay because the way the two books are set up, you believe the monster would say this and you believe the rabbits would, too. Anyway, it makes the characters more real, in my opinion.
I used to write fantasy stories and the characters - princes, angels, knights - would speak in horribly affected accents or all in capital letters. A knight might say, "Thou must stay and I wilst protecteth thee." You want to vomit, eh? An angel would say, "I MOVE HEAVEN AND EARTH FOR YOU." Yeah, all in caps like that. Cheesy, "Spew forth this frothy vomit that contains my soul" kind of stuff. Then, when I was fiction editor for the undergraduate magazine at college a story was submitted. Thirty-two pages of elves and princesses and flying and swords and dialogue like I used to write. I ran screaming and decided right then I would not try to change my characters' dialogue. They would just talk to each other, be it ancient times, 1800, or the future.
For a friend of mine, I would also like to warn that not enough rabbits die in horrible ways for you to enjoy this book. These are, inexplicably, good rabbits who don't deserve torturous deaths. I know that's hard for you to swallow. There is one violent scene where many, many rabbits are murdered by humans and though I know you abhor violence I think you needed to know that in this one scene all the your rabbit hate is satiated.
Anyway, Watership Down gets an A.
Anyway, last week I didn't read the book I was supposed to but I did this week. Hilariously, I read 300 pages of it in one seven-hour period. The last time I read 300 pages in one sitting was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This time, the book was Watership Down .
I've always wanted to read it because I disturbingly look back fondly on watching the movie when I was little. Disturbing because it was bloody and frightening although one redeeming quality was Art Garfunkel singing a song called "Bright Eyes" at the end when the Black Rabbit comes to get Hazel. I played the song in my head at the end of the book.
The book reminded me of everything I love about reading. It's a straightforward journey with a protagonist, obstacles, and a climactic fight. I really wanted to know what happened next at every turn. I also cared incredibly for the characters. Like I said a while back, it's hard to read a book when you don't care about the characters in it.
And it reminded me of a lesson I've learned about writing, one I impart to my students - particularly those who try to write fantasy. Here it is: the language and dialogue does not have to be Old English or fancy or anything of the sort. It can be everyday language. It can include colloquialisms. It can be "wrong" for its time period. I've always had a problem with this. I don't want to read a lot of jargon I have to decode to understand. Furthermore, no matter how the dialect, accent, and language would have actually sounded, to those who speak it and those who hear it on a daily basis nothing sounds out of the ordinary and to their ears it sounds like "normal" speech. And don't get me started on American actors trying to do accents - please, Hollywood, stop it now.
Anyway, in the book, a sea gull says "Piss off!" and though you do have to be paying attention to the "Lapine" (rabbit language) in the book (so there is, in fact, a bit of this problem in it) at one point you realize one rabbit says "Eat shit and die!" to another rabbit. It cracked me up when I figured it out, which didn't take long because I had been paying attention. In John Gardner's Grendel , a retelling of Beowulf from the monster's point of view, the monster, old as the Earth itself almost, says "fuck" and I believe maybe even "dude." I love it. This is okay because the way the two books are set up, you believe the monster would say this and you believe the rabbits would, too. Anyway, it makes the characters more real, in my opinion.
I used to write fantasy stories and the characters - princes, angels, knights - would speak in horribly affected accents or all in capital letters. A knight might say, "Thou must stay and I wilst protecteth thee." You want to vomit, eh? An angel would say, "I MOVE HEAVEN AND EARTH FOR YOU." Yeah, all in caps like that. Cheesy, "Spew forth this frothy vomit that contains my soul" kind of stuff. Then, when I was fiction editor for the undergraduate magazine at college a story was submitted. Thirty-two pages of elves and princesses and flying and swords and dialogue like I used to write. I ran screaming and decided right then I would not try to change my characters' dialogue. They would just talk to each other, be it ancient times, 1800, or the future.
For a friend of mine, I would also like to warn that not enough rabbits die in horrible ways for you to enjoy this book. These are, inexplicably, good rabbits who don't deserve torturous deaths. I know that's hard for you to swallow. There is one violent scene where many, many rabbits are murdered by humans and though I know you abhor violence I think you needed to know that in this one scene all the your rabbit hate is satiated.
Anyway, Watership Down gets an A.
January 29, 2010
And I've Come to a Conclusion...
...that I'm just going to do what Conan's fans didn't - watch Jay Leno on the Tonight Show and support him that way. I like Jay, and I'll follow him wherever he goes. I watched the interview with Oprah yesterday and I watched the little after-show on her website. There are a few important facts many journalists are not including:
1) Craig Ferguson had nearly equal ratings to Conan O'Brien at the end of 2008. Which means that most likely Late Night with Conan O'Brien would have been #2 had he still been there through 2009. There are other things of interest in the link, including how much Jay Leno was beating his competition while still host of the Tonight Show. Aaron Barnhart, the author of the blog in the link, is usually more coherent than he is in a few lines, so cut him some slack. He's been a reporter about television of for a long time and is respected by many.
One thing I find hilarious in the link, and it might not be there when (if) you click on it, is the little tweet at the side that mentions the integrity of TMZ being tarnished. Um...TMZ is really just the Enquirer of the internet. It has never been a reputable source. It is a sensational gossip magazine.
2) CONAN O'BRIEN WAS LOSING TO DAVID LETTERMAN BEFORE THE JAY LENO SHOW CAME ON. Yep, I'm shouting it, because in every freaking news article the Jay Leno Show gets blamed for being a poor lead-in, which would be fine if Conan had been winning and then after September was losing. But you know what? That is false.
3) Leno's sample audience for 2008 = between 3.9 (this statistic is in a link below) to 5.1 million viewers (you have to understand ratings and kind of poke around the link to find this).
Letterman's sample audience for 2009 when he was against Conan for seven months = 3.27 million viewers. And that - THAT - is in second place behind Nightline for that week at 3.36 million and Conan at around three million. These are statistics for one particular week, but the truth is they do represent an average.
4) Leno's finale rating for the Tonight Show = 8.8. Conan's? 7.0.
1 rating point = 1,128,000 viewers approximately. Therefore, Conan's 7 = 7,896,000. I'm not sure then where they are getting the 10.3 million from. Jay's 8.8 = 9,926,400.
Anyway, the point is that Conan's fans couldn't even be bothered to tune in to show NBC why they were making a mistake - they couldn't even give him a bigger sendoff than Jay Leno's fans gave him. Why would NBC be rethinking anything? Conan fans: you couldn't even be loyal for one night! You couldn't even be bothered to help him out in his one hour of need. You know what? That was the point where I began shouting "Shut up, Team CoCo!"
1) Craig Ferguson had nearly equal ratings to Conan O'Brien at the end of 2008. Which means that most likely Late Night with Conan O'Brien would have been #2 had he still been there through 2009. There are other things of interest in the link, including how much Jay Leno was beating his competition while still host of the Tonight Show. Aaron Barnhart, the author of the blog in the link, is usually more coherent than he is in a few lines, so cut him some slack. He's been a reporter about television of for a long time and is respected by many.
One thing I find hilarious in the link, and it might not be there when (if) you click on it, is the little tweet at the side that mentions the integrity of TMZ being tarnished. Um...TMZ is really just the Enquirer of the internet. It has never been a reputable source. It is a sensational gossip magazine.
2) CONAN O'BRIEN WAS LOSING TO DAVID LETTERMAN BEFORE THE JAY LENO SHOW CAME ON. Yep, I'm shouting it, because in every freaking news article the Jay Leno Show gets blamed for being a poor lead-in, which would be fine if Conan had been winning and then after September was losing. But you know what? That is false.
3) Leno's sample audience for 2008 = between 3.9 (this statistic is in a link below) to 5.1 million viewers (you have to understand ratings and kind of poke around the link to find this).
Letterman's sample audience for 2009 when he was against Conan for seven months = 3.27 million viewers. And that - THAT - is in second place behind Nightline for that week at 3.36 million and Conan at around three million. These are statistics for one particular week, but the truth is they do represent an average.
4) Leno's finale rating for the Tonight Show = 8.8. Conan's? 7.0.
1 rating point = 1,128,000 viewers approximately. Therefore, Conan's 7 = 7,896,000. I'm not sure then where they are getting the 10.3 million from. Jay's 8.8 = 9,926,400.
Anyway, the point is that Conan's fans couldn't even be bothered to tune in to show NBC why they were making a mistake - they couldn't even give him a bigger sendoff than Jay Leno's fans gave him. Why would NBC be rethinking anything? Conan fans: you couldn't even be loyal for one night! You couldn't even be bothered to help him out in his one hour of need. You know what? That was the point where I began shouting "Shut up, Team CoCo!"
January 27, 2010
Many Things
Combining many topics into one. If I get around to talking about late night television, I'll put it last and give a warning so anyone who is tired of it can stop reading at the point.
1) One more movie. Today I finished watching a movie called The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes's Smarter Brother (I cannot not put an 's). I loved it. Of course I did, Gene Wilder is crazy sexy. That man cannot look stupid; he has the most intelligent eyes. And speaking of eyes, Marty Feldman! Also Madeline Kahn and Dom Deluise are so brilliant. I disagree with the reviews I see of this movie as a poor attempt to mimic Mel Brooks. Yeah, I can see that, but there is singing, dancing, word-play, sword-play, and a Gene Wilder. Johnny Depp has nothing on that man.
2) I finished reading Theresa Williams's (there it is again) The Secret of Hurricanes. I enjoyed it very much, and I'm not just saying that because she is my former professor. Even though I don't care much for first-person narrative, the "I" was the only appropriate narrator for this story. I also don't care for revealing plot points before they actually happen, but I overlooked it since the style was easy-going and I found myself reading so quickly I forgot to care about my preferences. I would give it a B. It definitely rose above most slice-of-life fictions, which aren't my favorite kind of story. (Warning: themes of incest, rape, and murder.)
3) I realized today that I can't eat outside of designated times anymore because my body has acclimated itself to eating at either 8:00 a.m., 1:00 p.m., 4:00 p.m., or 10:00 p.m. Today I was trying to eat a shrimp dinner at 5:30 p.m. and even though it was really, really tasty I just couldn't eat it. But I was starving at around 10:00. This...sucks. The times I eat correspond to time periods of my various shifts at work. Screwing with my life when I leave it behind.
*****DANGER, DANGER WILL ROBINSON*****
4)Late night television. Please, please, people, read something other than Bill Carter's book The Late Shift to get a more well-rounded perspective on what happened in 1992. Carter's book is admittedly biased in favor of Letterman and therefore does not give a fair shake to Leno. It also doesn't paint Letterman in a favorable light, anyway, as I feel it makes him look like a child who waited for the world to fall into his lap, then brooded when it didn't. The scenes that are supposed to make me feel bad about him, such as the one where he passes the note to Teri Garr (or Sandra Bernhardt, depending on the source) saying he hates himself seems to me like a person who self-deprecates in order to hear everyone praise him. He is the ultimate passive-agressive.
1) One more movie. Today I finished watching a movie called The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes's Smarter Brother (I cannot not put an 's). I loved it. Of course I did, Gene Wilder is crazy sexy. That man cannot look stupid; he has the most intelligent eyes. And speaking of eyes, Marty Feldman! Also Madeline Kahn and Dom Deluise are so brilliant. I disagree with the reviews I see of this movie as a poor attempt to mimic Mel Brooks. Yeah, I can see that, but there is singing, dancing, word-play, sword-play, and a Gene Wilder. Johnny Depp has nothing on that man.
2) I finished reading Theresa Williams's (there it is again) The Secret of Hurricanes. I enjoyed it very much, and I'm not just saying that because she is my former professor. Even though I don't care much for first-person narrative, the "I" was the only appropriate narrator for this story. I also don't care for revealing plot points before they actually happen, but I overlooked it since the style was easy-going and I found myself reading so quickly I forgot to care about my preferences. I would give it a B. It definitely rose above most slice-of-life fictions, which aren't my favorite kind of story. (Warning: themes of incest, rape, and murder.)
3) I realized today that I can't eat outside of designated times anymore because my body has acclimated itself to eating at either 8:00 a.m., 1:00 p.m., 4:00 p.m., or 10:00 p.m. Today I was trying to eat a shrimp dinner at 5:30 p.m. and even though it was really, really tasty I just couldn't eat it. But I was starving at around 10:00. This...sucks. The times I eat correspond to time periods of my various shifts at work. Screwing with my life when I leave it behind.
*****DANGER, DANGER WILL ROBINSON*****
4)Late night television. Please, please, people, read something other than Bill Carter's book The Late Shift to get a more well-rounded perspective on what happened in 1992. Carter's book is admittedly biased in favor of Letterman and therefore does not give a fair shake to Leno. It also doesn't paint Letterman in a favorable light, anyway, as I feel it makes him look like a child who waited for the world to fall into his lap, then brooded when it didn't. The scenes that are supposed to make me feel bad about him, such as the one where he passes the note to Teri Garr (or Sandra Bernhardt, depending on the source) saying he hates himself seems to me like a person who self-deprecates in order to hear everyone praise him. He is the ultimate passive-agressive.
January 26, 2010
An Evening with Netflix
I watched two movies on Netflix today. They were both strange and wonderful at the same time, though one more than the other in each category.
The first was Alice. It was strange. More strange than wonderful. I'm the first person who loves absolute creepy weirdness, but only if it has a purpose in the end. For instance, let me tell you the story of the video game Silent Hill and its successive installments.
In the first game, and in many of its sequels, the monsters in the game are symbols from the minds/environments of the main characters. The shadow children represent Alessa's schoolmates who were mean to her, flying monsters represent the butterflies she collected, the evil nurses were from the hospital she was kept in, etc. The monsters had a purpose. As the series progressed, the monsters were still scary but lacked symbolism. A monster with what looks like a hammer for a head in the fifth game is a stretch since the story ends *spoiler* with death in a lake. A lake. No hammerhead sharks there, I hate to tell the writers. By this time in the series, I had become disillusioned with the games because I felt like the writers were going more for shock and gore than for metaphor.
This is how I felt with Alice. I'm sure someone far smarter or more artistic than I am will be shouting about how symbolic a crib with vulture wings and claws is, but I don't see how it fits into the story of Alice in Wonderland. I think it's hellacool to have an animal skull with a body that is a glass jar go crawling across the floor in pursuit of Alice, a la that beautifully terrifying penultimate scene in the move Freaks, but why a jar? Because Alice drinks from a jar in the story? Why an animal skull, then? The utter creepiness of the White Rabbit being the world's most disturbing puppet is worth watching but in the end I just find myself scratching my head. I want to like the film for being so gutsy, and I want to believe Lewis Carroll would find it incredibly artistic, but I just felt disappointed.
The second film was In the Realms of the Unreal. This one was more wonderful than strange. This is the story of an eccentric man named Henry Darger who wrote what is believed the longest piece of fiction ever. 15,000+ pages. It's an incredible allegory. I mean, the symbolism is unreal (did you like that pun, you-know-who) - by which I mean it's quite beautiful. The struggle he depicts, which through notes in his journal we come to understand represents the struggles within himself, is just amazing. I have one question for anyone who might be doing more research on him:
Was there, possibly, a young girl named Vivian Darger adopted at the time Henry's sister was taken away? Because there must be a reason the little heroine girls have the last name "Vivian." It is said early in the film that Henry remembers nothing about her...but possibly he remembers, just vaguely, her appearance and name, which is why he is obsessed with little blonde girls and why he gives his characters that moniker. I think this is quite obvious.
It's a sad yet brilliant film to watch. I wish I had the money to buy the book about it. I don't, probably not in this decade. I highly recommend this movie to anyone though I will warn - there is animated nudity and Darger walks the line of the pedophile. I don't think he was thinking of the little girls in any way other than angels, but it's slightly disturbing, so be warned.
The first was Alice. It was strange. More strange than wonderful. I'm the first person who loves absolute creepy weirdness, but only if it has a purpose in the end. For instance, let me tell you the story of the video game Silent Hill and its successive installments.
In the first game, and in many of its sequels, the monsters in the game are symbols from the minds/environments of the main characters. The shadow children represent Alessa's schoolmates who were mean to her, flying monsters represent the butterflies she collected, the evil nurses were from the hospital she was kept in, etc. The monsters had a purpose. As the series progressed, the monsters were still scary but lacked symbolism. A monster with what looks like a hammer for a head in the fifth game is a stretch since the story ends *spoiler* with death in a lake. A lake. No hammerhead sharks there, I hate to tell the writers. By this time in the series, I had become disillusioned with the games because I felt like the writers were going more for shock and gore than for metaphor.
This is how I felt with Alice. I'm sure someone far smarter or more artistic than I am will be shouting about how symbolic a crib with vulture wings and claws is, but I don't see how it fits into the story of Alice in Wonderland. I think it's hellacool to have an animal skull with a body that is a glass jar go crawling across the floor in pursuit of Alice, a la that beautifully terrifying penultimate scene in the move Freaks, but why a jar? Because Alice drinks from a jar in the story? Why an animal skull, then? The utter creepiness of the White Rabbit being the world's most disturbing puppet is worth watching but in the end I just find myself scratching my head. I want to like the film for being so gutsy, and I want to believe Lewis Carroll would find it incredibly artistic, but I just felt disappointed.
The second film was In the Realms of the Unreal. This one was more wonderful than strange. This is the story of an eccentric man named Henry Darger who wrote what is believed the longest piece of fiction ever. 15,000+ pages. It's an incredible allegory. I mean, the symbolism is unreal (did you like that pun, you-know-who) - by which I mean it's quite beautiful. The struggle he depicts, which through notes in his journal we come to understand represents the struggles within himself, is just amazing. I have one question for anyone who might be doing more research on him:
Was there, possibly, a young girl named Vivian Darger adopted at the time Henry's sister was taken away? Because there must be a reason the little heroine girls have the last name "Vivian." It is said early in the film that Henry remembers nothing about her...but possibly he remembers, just vaguely, her appearance and name, which is why he is obsessed with little blonde girls and why he gives his characters that moniker. I think this is quite obvious.
It's a sad yet brilliant film to watch. I wish I had the money to buy the book about it. I don't, probably not in this decade. I highly recommend this movie to anyone though I will warn - there is animated nudity and Darger walks the line of the pedophile. I don't think he was thinking of the little girls in any way other than angels, but it's slightly disturbing, so be warned.
January 25, 2010
January 23, 2010
Questions...the Stolen Idea
(I will not begin this post with the word "so.")
I'm stealing an idea from a few blogs I read, where I feel I've learned some important little things (and big things) about my friends by reading their answers to a few questions. I'm just glad this post isn't a rant about Late-Night-Talk-Show-Host-Who-Must-Never-Ever-Ever-Be-Named-Again-In-American-Society. You can devise for yourselves who I mean by that, whether it be whom America hates or whom I hate.
Anyway...onto the stealing. I took this list from here. I cut out two questions I thought were similar to the previous questions.
Great questions for anyone
What was the happiest moment of your life? Pass.
The saddest? I'd say the day my cousin Tim died. Probably because he wasn't far away, or someone I saw once a year or less, but was right across town and frequently at our house. I couldn't control my emotions in public, which I can't say for any other time.
Who was the most important person in your life? Why "was"? My mother. The thought of losing her makes me panic. It is one of the reasons I haven't moved out, and I know that makes me seem childish to some.
Can you tell me about him or her? She gives and gives, not without complaint. Her first husband died in Vietnam, her second was extremely physically abusive, and her third may not have much money, causing stress and worry all around, but he's around and he rarely gets angry.
Who has been the kindest to you in your life? Certain professors who never used their power to make me feel inferior or inept, and who never whined about how much harder it was when they went to school.
What are the most important lessons you’ve learned in life? To apologize. I don't feel as though anyone has ever apologized to me when they've hurt me, and it has made me always want to be the one who steps up and faces embarrassment.
What is your earliest memory? The layout of the house when I was about two years old. Particularly the divide between the living room and the kitchen. The sliding glass door in the kitchen. There was a long hallway and the bedroom where I slept only had one incredibly small window (maybe 2 feet by 1 foot). I apparently was sick from the lack of light in that room.
Are there any words of wisdom you’d like to pass along to me? No.
What are you proudest of in your life? My education. I do believe I'm the first person in my extended family to go beyond college.
When in life have you felt most alone? Right now.
How has your life been different than what you’d imagined? I didn't imagine living at home and working at a clothing store at this point. But it's of my own doing.
How would you like to be remembered? As brilliant. I'm not going to lie or be cheesy. I want to write the book that wins a Pulitzer and which literature classes read for hundreds of years.
Do you have any regrets? That I doddled around for too long and am just now realizing it.
What does your future hold? A bagel with sundried tomato and basil cream cheese.
Is there anything that you’ve never told me but want to tell me now? Yes, but not now. Not yet.
Is there something about me that you’ve always wanted to know but have never asked? Plenty, but I don't ask. In the same way I don't ask people if I can hold their babies.
What was the happiest moment of your life? Publishing my Master's thesis, my way, my subject. That seems lame, but it's the one moment where I didn't back down and I feel proud.
I'm stealing an idea from a few blogs I read, where I feel I've learned some important little things (and big things) about my friends by reading their answers to a few questions. I'm just glad this post isn't a rant about Late-Night-Talk-Show-Host-Who-Must-Never-Ever-Ever-Be-Named-Again-In-American-Society. You can devise for yourselves who I mean by that, whether it be whom America hates or whom I hate.
Anyway...onto the stealing. I took this list from here. I cut out two questions I thought were similar to the previous questions.
Great questions for anyone
What was the happiest moment of your life? Pass.
The saddest? I'd say the day my cousin Tim died. Probably because he wasn't far away, or someone I saw once a year or less, but was right across town and frequently at our house. I couldn't control my emotions in public, which I can't say for any other time.
Who was the most important person in your life? Why "was"? My mother. The thought of losing her makes me panic. It is one of the reasons I haven't moved out, and I know that makes me seem childish to some.
Can you tell me about him or her? She gives and gives, not without complaint. Her first husband died in Vietnam, her second was extremely physically abusive, and her third may not have much money, causing stress and worry all around, but he's around and he rarely gets angry.
Who has been the kindest to you in your life? Certain professors who never used their power to make me feel inferior or inept, and who never whined about how much harder it was when they went to school.
What are the most important lessons you’ve learned in life? To apologize. I don't feel as though anyone has ever apologized to me when they've hurt me, and it has made me always want to be the one who steps up and faces embarrassment.
What is your earliest memory? The layout of the house when I was about two years old. Particularly the divide between the living room and the kitchen. The sliding glass door in the kitchen. There was a long hallway and the bedroom where I slept only had one incredibly small window (maybe 2 feet by 1 foot). I apparently was sick from the lack of light in that room.
Are there any words of wisdom you’d like to pass along to me? No.
What are you proudest of in your life? My education. I do believe I'm the first person in my extended family to go beyond college.
When in life have you felt most alone? Right now.
How has your life been different than what you’d imagined? I didn't imagine living at home and working at a clothing store at this point. But it's of my own doing.
How would you like to be remembered? As brilliant. I'm not going to lie or be cheesy. I want to write the book that wins a Pulitzer and which literature classes read for hundreds of years.
Do you have any regrets? That I doddled around for too long and am just now realizing it.
What does your future hold? A bagel with sundried tomato and basil cream cheese.
Is there anything that you’ve never told me but want to tell me now? Yes, but not now. Not yet.
Is there something about me that you’ve always wanted to know but have never asked? Plenty, but I don't ask. In the same way I don't ask people if I can hold their babies.
What was the happiest moment of your life? Publishing my Master's thesis, my way, my subject. That seems lame, but it's the one moment where I didn't back down and I feel proud.
January 22, 2010
This Post Is Not about Late Night Television!
It's about my weekly goal for reading and writing. So far I think it's going quite well. I wrote a short story last week that I will now put aside to read and revise when I get some distance from it. I'm thinking I'll read it the next time short story writing comes around (two weeks from now). There is a backyard wedding scene in the story that is giving me some problems. It hasn't turned out how I wanted it to and I'm struggling to think of how to fix it. Maybe putting it out of sight / out of mind will help.
Weekly book: The Secret of Hurricanes by Theresa Williams. This book was written by my former professor and I'm ashamed to say I haven't read it yet. That is about to change. Thirty pages each day to read it in one week.
Weekly writing: One chapter in my "random" novel.
Weekly book: The Secret of Hurricanes by Theresa Williams. This book was written by my former professor and I'm ashamed to say I haven't read it yet. That is about to change. Thirty pages each day to read it in one week.
Weekly writing: One chapter in my "random" novel.
Because I'm Like a Dog...
...with a chew toy. Sigghhhhhhh.
No one will ever read this who cares, but I have to say it somewhere. Another thing no one ever thinks about in the whole Jay/Dave (because ultimately, it will now always be about the two of them an no one else) mess is what would have happened had Letterman actually been given the Tonight Show. Let's envision an alternate universe where this happens:
Jay Leno is guest hosting for Johnny Carson, somewhere around 40% of the episodes. He is hot among the younger demographic and is sustaining and/or beating the ratings when he guest hosts. He needs some job security so he isn't permanently stuck in neutral, plus he's been getting offers from other networks to host his own late night talk show, particularly at CBS. He asks NBC what they can offer him. They do not offer him the Tonight Show, instead promising it to David Letterman, who Carson prefers. Leno then chooses to leave NBC for his own show on CBS. Let's call this show Late Show with Jay Leno.
Now, let's give Jay Leno about two years before David Letterman takes over the Tonight Show when Carson retires. In this time Jay Leno stumbles around, fires his manager, retools a bit. His ratings slowly rise though at first he doesn't quite beat Carson but instead gains on him. David Letterman then takes over the Tonight Show.
Letterman creams Leno for about eighteen months. Leno plugs along, never falling in his ratings from the #2 spot and still slowly gaining more viewers. Letterman remains Letterman and so he begins losing viewers. Leno overtakes him (which he was trending toward doing even without Hugh Grant's infamous interview, you know, the one where viewers were tricked into staying with Leno because they didn't know how to change the channel the next night). Now, the great Tonight Show is #2 and Late Show with Jay Leno is #1. Leno remains #1 on CBS for fifteen years while the Tonight Show falls behind Nightline at times to #3 (which happened to Letterman quite a few times). Now, Letterman has the reputation of being the man who ruined the Tonight Show.
Now, here are what I think critics would argue: the Tonight Show name would have carried David Letterman to #1 because that is the only reason people watched Jay Leno, not because of Leno himself. So Leno would have never won against David Letterman. Counterargument: So are you saying that David Letterman is equally not as capable of carrying his own show to #1 unless he has the Tonight Show name behind him? Because he wasn't #1 without that name until Conan O'Brien took over.
What if Leno had never fired his manager or realized his show needed to be different than what it was in the beginning? Good point. That is totally valid. That would have changed the outcome. I can't really aruge that other than to say I think most of that was inevitable. CBS might not have had the leverage to force Leno to fire Kushnick, but I think Leno, who has publicly acknowledged fear of losing what he's gained, would have fired her to keep his show, Tonight Show or not.
Letterman would not have been as cranky and would have had more appeal. Maybe. But he really isn't much different now than he was on Late Night, so most likely not.
Anyway, what happened in real life cannot be ignored for people who wish it had turned out differently. If we look at the facts of the matter, Leno beat Letterman. That is history. The truth is that Jay Leno kept the Tonight Show #1 for a long time and whether one set of viewers thinks he's lame, another set of viewers thought he was funny, and one is not less valid than the other.
I don't understand the people who get upset when they are told to watch something else if they don't like what's on station #1. Turn to station #2, then. You don't like to read the Twilight books? Read Doris Lessing, then. You don't want to be a Buddhist? Then practice Hinduism. Period.
I'll express it again - I don't know why this sticks in my craw so much. These are millionaires and I don't know why I care what's fair to say about them. Whatever, I'm going to Youtube to watch some Craig Ferguson.
(P.S.) I would like to thank Mark Evanier for a lot of these ideas. He is really brilliant. You can blame him, if you wish, for enabling my obsession.
No one will ever read this who cares, but I have to say it somewhere. Another thing no one ever thinks about in the whole Jay/Dave (because ultimately, it will now always be about the two of them an no one else) mess is what would have happened had Letterman actually been given the Tonight Show. Let's envision an alternate universe where this happens:
Jay Leno is guest hosting for Johnny Carson, somewhere around 40% of the episodes. He is hot among the younger demographic and is sustaining and/or beating the ratings when he guest hosts. He needs some job security so he isn't permanently stuck in neutral, plus he's been getting offers from other networks to host his own late night talk show, particularly at CBS. He asks NBC what they can offer him. They do not offer him the Tonight Show, instead promising it to David Letterman, who Carson prefers. Leno then chooses to leave NBC for his own show on CBS. Let's call this show Late Show with Jay Leno.
Now, let's give Jay Leno about two years before David Letterman takes over the Tonight Show when Carson retires. In this time Jay Leno stumbles around, fires his manager, retools a bit. His ratings slowly rise though at first he doesn't quite beat Carson but instead gains on him. David Letterman then takes over the Tonight Show.
Letterman creams Leno for about eighteen months. Leno plugs along, never falling in his ratings from the #2 spot and still slowly gaining more viewers. Letterman remains Letterman and so he begins losing viewers. Leno overtakes him (which he was trending toward doing even without Hugh Grant's infamous interview, you know, the one where viewers were tricked into staying with Leno because they didn't know how to change the channel the next night). Now, the great Tonight Show is #2 and Late Show with Jay Leno is #1. Leno remains #1 on CBS for fifteen years while the Tonight Show falls behind Nightline at times to #3 (which happened to Letterman quite a few times). Now, Letterman has the reputation of being the man who ruined the Tonight Show.
Now, here are what I think critics would argue: the Tonight Show name would have carried David Letterman to #1 because that is the only reason people watched Jay Leno, not because of Leno himself. So Leno would have never won against David Letterman. Counterargument: So are you saying that David Letterman is equally not as capable of carrying his own show to #1 unless he has the Tonight Show name behind him? Because he wasn't #1 without that name until Conan O'Brien took over.
What if Leno had never fired his manager or realized his show needed to be different than what it was in the beginning? Good point. That is totally valid. That would have changed the outcome. I can't really aruge that other than to say I think most of that was inevitable. CBS might not have had the leverage to force Leno to fire Kushnick, but I think Leno, who has publicly acknowledged fear of losing what he's gained, would have fired her to keep his show, Tonight Show or not.
Letterman would not have been as cranky and would have had more appeal. Maybe. But he really isn't much different now than he was on Late Night, so most likely not.
Anyway, what happened in real life cannot be ignored for people who wish it had turned out differently. If we look at the facts of the matter, Leno beat Letterman. That is history. The truth is that Jay Leno kept the Tonight Show #1 for a long time and whether one set of viewers thinks he's lame, another set of viewers thought he was funny, and one is not less valid than the other.
I don't understand the people who get upset when they are told to watch something else if they don't like what's on station #1. Turn to station #2, then. You don't like to read the Twilight books? Read Doris Lessing, then. You don't want to be a Buddhist? Then practice Hinduism. Period.
I'll express it again - I don't know why this sticks in my craw so much. These are millionaires and I don't know why I care what's fair to say about them. Whatever, I'm going to Youtube to watch some Craig Ferguson.
(P.S.) I would like to thank Mark Evanier for a lot of these ideas. He is really brilliant. You can blame him, if you wish, for enabling my obsession.
January 21, 2010
Using Awesome Knowledge for Stupid Purposes
Best College Class of All Time: Philosophy of Punishment
Professor of Said Class: The Amazing Dr. James Stuart
Lesson: Philosophical Arguments
So, a backstory. My best friend and I were in a class together called the Philosophy of Punishment (which was about the penal system in our capitalist society) taught by an extremely funny, intelligent man named Dr. Stuart. Dr. Stuart referred to himself in the third person when lecturing about articles he had written (i.e. "Stuart says in paragraph four...." "You're Stuart!" we would quietly say. Then we would smile, and thus we became "The Smiling Girls.") We were the only ones who understood his jokes because everyone else in the class was clueless. What I remember most: the difference between systematic and abberational errors, with the classic example of Lee Iacocca taking over GM and expunging it of its systematic errors. Anyway, one day Dr. Stuart taught us about philosophical arguments. Basically, they go as thus:
John F. Kennedy was murdered.
People who are murdered are dead.
________________________________
Therefore, John F. Kennedy is dead.
Two or more premises lead to a conclusion and to make a logical argument, the conclusion must follow the logic of the premises. Simple, no? Well, I'm going to use this awesome ability Dr. Stuart has bestowed upon me to make an inane, unimportant-to-anyone-but-apparently-me argument. Of course, it's about late night TV. Surprised? Have you read this blog?
The logic according to the critics:
Jay Leno threatened to leave NBC if they didn't give him the Tonight Show.
Threatening to leave if you don't get a show makes you a douchebag.
________________________________________________________________________
Therefore, Jay Leno is a douchebag.
Okay, using their own logic:
Conan O'Brien threatened to leave NBC if they didn't give him the Tonight Show.
Threatening to leave if you don't get a show makes you a doucebag.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Therefore, Conan O'Brien is a douchebag.
See the double standard there?
I don't think Conan is a douchebag. I enjoy Conan on occasion. I just wanted to point out how the critics skew their own logic because they've made a decision on who is "cool" and must spin every story to support their opinions.
There will be more arguments to come (I hear that groan). I had a few in mind but of course, they aren't coming to mind right now. They will, though. They will.
Professor of Said Class: The Amazing Dr. James Stuart
Lesson: Philosophical Arguments
So, a backstory. My best friend and I were in a class together called the Philosophy of Punishment (which was about the penal system in our capitalist society) taught by an extremely funny, intelligent man named Dr. Stuart. Dr. Stuart referred to himself in the third person when lecturing about articles he had written (i.e. "Stuart says in paragraph four...." "You're Stuart!" we would quietly say. Then we would smile, and thus we became "The Smiling Girls.") We were the only ones who understood his jokes because everyone else in the class was clueless. What I remember most: the difference between systematic and abberational errors, with the classic example of Lee Iacocca taking over GM and expunging it of its systematic errors. Anyway, one day Dr. Stuart taught us about philosophical arguments. Basically, they go as thus:
John F. Kennedy was murdered.
People who are murdered are dead.
________________________________
Therefore, John F. Kennedy is dead.
Two or more premises lead to a conclusion and to make a logical argument, the conclusion must follow the logic of the premises. Simple, no? Well, I'm going to use this awesome ability Dr. Stuart has bestowed upon me to make an inane, unimportant-to-anyone-but-apparently-me argument. Of course, it's about late night TV. Surprised? Have you read this blog?
The logic according to the critics:
Jay Leno threatened to leave NBC if they didn't give him the Tonight Show.
Threatening to leave if you don't get a show makes you a douchebag.
________________________________________________________________________
Therefore, Jay Leno is a douchebag.
Okay, using their own logic:
Conan O'Brien threatened to leave NBC if they didn't give him the Tonight Show.
Threatening to leave if you don't get a show makes you a doucebag.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Therefore, Conan O'Brien is a douchebag.
See the double standard there?
I don't think Conan is a douchebag. I enjoy Conan on occasion. I just wanted to point out how the critics skew their own logic because they've made a decision on who is "cool" and must spin every story to support their opinions.
There will be more arguments to come (I hear that groan). I had a few in mind but of course, they aren't coming to mind right now. They will, though. They will.
More Ranting, More Ranting
Feel free to skip this post if you're tired of hearing me harp about this issue. Issue? Iowa? It's not even an issue worth anything (not that Iowa isn't worth anything either - it's a fine state, I'm sure). I don't even understand my own obsession with this late night thing. I don't even watch Jay or Conan or Dave or Jon Stewart or Craig Ferguson (who is the person I actually watch the most - on Youtube).
1) Hahahahaha.
2) Hollywood is saying they won't go on the Tonight Show when Jay Leno takes it over again. Great! Thank God! Jay, talk to the janitor from your show, or the gas station attendant, or your wife. All of those people are most likely far more interesting than the majority of celebrities.
3) Be more like you used to be. Be more like you were during the strike when a good deal of critics said you seemed spontaneous and acidic. Reinvent yourself.
4) Conan seems to have stopped making fun of Jay Leno himself and is sticking to jokes about NBC.
5) How is a masturbating bear more intelligent than Jay Leno? Please, someone, explain this logic to me. I must be really, really stupid.
6) I'm still mad at you, Jay. You should not have agreed to 11:35 in any of the capacities NBC offered it to you again. You are to blame there. You could have just waited out your contract or told them you would be a correspondent for the Today Show or something. You have a major obstacle of your own construction to overcome here. I'm rooting for you, nonetheless, and I don't understand why.
7) I'm pretty certain Jay Leno knew what Jimmy Kimmel was going to do on his show. I don't think he was blindsided at all. I wouldn't be surprised if he wrote some of those barbs Jimmy threw at him. However, Jimmy Kimmel's comment that he had kids to take care of and Jay Leno doesn't was really a lame argument - you're a millionaire and if you feel you need any more money than you have then you haven't been smart with your money. Plus, Jay has said his Tonight Show money is tied up in scholarships and charity donations. So, while Jimmy is arguing about money for his own kids Jay is giving his money to...other...people's...kids. He is EVIL!
8) Leno did not cross a line simply because he made fun of Letterman's affairs (which he claims are private but unfortunately are very public). Letterman crossed a line when he insinuated Leno should drop dead. That is far more personal - it is a wish of death on another person. Why is Letterman always praised for being "ascerbic" while Leno is criticized for being "low?" And I can't repeat it enough: Letterman cheated on his then live-in girlfriend. So, according to the media, feel free to cheat on your boyfriends and girlfriends because those relationsips do not matter.
More later, I'm sure.
1) Hahahahaha.
2) Hollywood is saying they won't go on the Tonight Show when Jay Leno takes it over again. Great! Thank God! Jay, talk to the janitor from your show, or the gas station attendant, or your wife. All of those people are most likely far more interesting than the majority of celebrities.
3) Be more like you used to be. Be more like you were during the strike when a good deal of critics said you seemed spontaneous and acidic. Reinvent yourself.
4) Conan seems to have stopped making fun of Jay Leno himself and is sticking to jokes about NBC.
5) How is a masturbating bear more intelligent than Jay Leno? Please, someone, explain this logic to me. I must be really, really stupid.
6) I'm still mad at you, Jay. You should not have agreed to 11:35 in any of the capacities NBC offered it to you again. You are to blame there. You could have just waited out your contract or told them you would be a correspondent for the Today Show or something. You have a major obstacle of your own construction to overcome here. I'm rooting for you, nonetheless, and I don't understand why.
7) I'm pretty certain Jay Leno knew what Jimmy Kimmel was going to do on his show. I don't think he was blindsided at all. I wouldn't be surprised if he wrote some of those barbs Jimmy threw at him. However, Jimmy Kimmel's comment that he had kids to take care of and Jay Leno doesn't was really a lame argument - you're a millionaire and if you feel you need any more money than you have then you haven't been smart with your money. Plus, Jay has said his Tonight Show money is tied up in scholarships and charity donations. So, while Jimmy is arguing about money for his own kids Jay is giving his money to...other...people's...kids. He is EVIL!
8) Leno did not cross a line simply because he made fun of Letterman's affairs (which he claims are private but unfortunately are very public). Letterman crossed a line when he insinuated Leno should drop dead. That is far more personal - it is a wish of death on another person. Why is Letterman always praised for being "ascerbic" while Leno is criticized for being "low?" And I can't repeat it enough: Letterman cheated on his then live-in girlfriend. So, according to the media, feel free to cheat on your boyfriends and girlfriends because those relationsips do not matter.
More later, I'm sure.
January 18, 2010
The Virgin Suicides
Maybe one of the five most important books I've ever read in my life.
It does everything I hope to do with my own fiction. It is darkly witty. It reveals the dark side of human psychology. It has obsessive characters who are at times nameless (and dark). We never truly understand how the girls came to their decision (which means they seem to have been dropped into their situation with no explanation of how they got there). It is an allegory for our current society. It is both extremely personal and tells a universal truth. The girls are seductive in their mystery.
I'm more excited than ever to write the novel I know is the only novel I can write at this time in my life. It will include thoughts and actions from my own life but will be fiction, as I think I will need to weave the story with more details and scenes to help the reader understand my psychology. It will be a fictionalized memoir, which has two meanings. One meaning is to write a novel pretending it is a fictional character's memoir. The other meaning is to write a true memoir but hide it behind a character with added content. My novel is the latter.
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides gets an A. Go read it and then give it to someone else. I don't say that about many books. I can't even think of one right now.
It does everything I hope to do with my own fiction. It is darkly witty. It reveals the dark side of human psychology. It has obsessive characters who are at times nameless (and dark). We never truly understand how the girls came to their decision (which means they seem to have been dropped into their situation with no explanation of how they got there). It is an allegory for our current society. It is both extremely personal and tells a universal truth. The girls are seductive in their mystery.
I'm more excited than ever to write the novel I know is the only novel I can write at this time in my life. It will include thoughts and actions from my own life but will be fiction, as I think I will need to weave the story with more details and scenes to help the reader understand my psychology. It will be a fictionalized memoir, which has two meanings. One meaning is to write a novel pretending it is a fictional character's memoir. The other meaning is to write a true memoir but hide it behind a character with added content. My novel is the latter.
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides gets an A. Go read it and then give it to someone else. I don't say that about many books. I can't even think of one right now.
January 17, 2010
Favorite Blog
A man named Mark Evanier writes a blog that I think is incredibly smart, funny, and knowledgeable. He has been in the television, comedy, and comics (like DC/Marvel kind of comics) business for a long, long time. He knows the ins and outs of the industry. He is also fairly unbiased when he writes about this industry. He gives great insight into the sides of show-biz that we don't often know about so the public can understand decisions we usually only see one side of. Anyway, he wrote a long essay that I think is, quite simply, fair and honest about the latest bruhaha in late night.
January 16, 2010
Helping Me Not Care
This article says exactly what I think, deep down, I believe as well. Most of the late night shows aren't anything special anymore. None of them are innovative and each of them has its pros and cons. I am upset that Conan is off the Tonight Show even though I seem to have an unnatural attachment to Jay Leno. I hope one of my favorite bloggers is right when he says Jay will redeem himself if he brings the Tonight Show back to number one in the ratings.
Reading Redux
Well, reading one book a week is going well. It's too bad I'm not smart enough to make that sentence a palindrome. I once wrote a poem that was a palindrome. Someday I'll post it. (It even sorta makes sense.)
Anyway, I think I may have to abandon the ten-pages-a-day goal. I often forget to read those pages and, to be honest, the Mahabharata and the Koran are a bit boring. I can't believe I'm about to admit this, but the Bible is actually interesting. I'm certain it's because I was raised in the West on the idea that a story is chronological and goes action by action. The Mahabharata is too much information packed into each page and the Koran is too much information told by the translator (not as though he were translating text, but as though he felt the need to make things clear). Otherwise the Koran is just a lot of praising, which is fine, but boring to read.
I think I bite off more than I can chew because I often feel lazy. One book a week is not very many. But maybe it's enough for a starter goal. This week, the book is The Virgin Suicides, by Jeffrey Eugenides. I'm also writing one short story this week, one chapter in novel #1 next week, once chapter in novel #2 the following week. Be ready for me to revise these goals often.
Anyway, I think I may have to abandon the ten-pages-a-day goal. I often forget to read those pages and, to be honest, the Mahabharata and the Koran are a bit boring. I can't believe I'm about to admit this, but the Bible is actually interesting. I'm certain it's because I was raised in the West on the idea that a story is chronological and goes action by action. The Mahabharata is too much information packed into each page and the Koran is too much information told by the translator (not as though he were translating text, but as though he felt the need to make things clear). Otherwise the Koran is just a lot of praising, which is fine, but boring to read.
I think I bite off more than I can chew because I often feel lazy. One book a week is not very many. But maybe it's enough for a starter goal. This week, the book is The Virgin Suicides, by Jeffrey Eugenides. I'm also writing one short story this week, one chapter in novel #1 next week, once chapter in novel #2 the following week. Be ready for me to revise these goals often.
January 14, 2010
And One More Whine
Scenario:
If David Letterman had been wooed back to NBC and was kicking Conan off the air and Jay Leno had made the joke about "Law and Order: Letterman Victims Unit" the critics would say it was lame and low. This is my problem with it all because, truth be told, I thought the "Law and Order: Lenos Victim Unit" joke was clever but my enjoyment was tainted with the knowledge that Jay Leno would never have been allowed to make that joke and be called clever. It's not that I think Jay does no wrong ("Are you going to let this bitch outbid you?" Really, Jay?), but that I think most of the media thinks he can do no right.
P.S. I don't have the will right now to link to all of these things but will eventually, including articles that call Jay the "Heir-aparent" and the one where he royally screws up (the "bitch" comment).
If David Letterman had been wooed back to NBC and was kicking Conan off the air and Jay Leno had made the joke about "Law and Order: Letterman Victims Unit" the critics would say it was lame and low. This is my problem with it all because, truth be told, I thought the "Law and Order: Lenos Victim Unit" joke was clever but my enjoyment was tainted with the knowledge that Jay Leno would never have been allowed to make that joke and be called clever. It's not that I think Jay does no wrong ("Are you going to let this bitch outbid you?" Really, Jay?), but that I think most of the media thinks he can do no right.
P.S. I don't have the will right now to link to all of these things but will eventually, including articles that call Jay the "Heir-aparent" and the one where he royally screws up (the "bitch" comment).
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