One of the greatest movies ever made, is to me, one of the movies that continues to stand the test of time and does not feel out dated or decaying. Unlike Citizen Kane, which was unbearable to me, It's a Wonderful Life is a smooth sailing, in depth tale of George Bailey, a big fish in a small pond that grows to take over his father's business. Hopefully we all know the tale of It's a Wonderful Life, because on this Christmas Eve I'm going to explain why the movie is so bittersweet I don't know if I can stand watching it anymore. It's a fear that I have long since expected myself to never overcome, and it's a warning to those who wish to treat their life with burderns. It's raining outside, and it'll only rain harder.
God is watching over George Bailey, and the 1946 movie is watched over by Frank Capra, a director that continued to symbolize his heroes as the "common nobility" which in my opinion culminated in the david and goliath fight in the politically charged Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. In It's a Wonderful Life George Bailey was born and grew up completely normal and middle class. As a testament to his character though, Jimmy Stewart has always been completely able to take normal characters and trascend them to a grand, heroic, and powerful nature. George Bailey from the beginning working in the ice cream shop in town is passionate and charismatic, attracting the attention of the soon to be Monroe and Kennedy women, with the blonde bombshell, and the beautiful damsel. Both experience overwhelming respect and wanting of Bailey, but like everything in his life but his intentions, Bailey takes no notice. His entire life is a run through with a culminating savior story of an angel descending from heaven to teach George Bailey that not only is life worth living but it's worth living his life.
And what a life he could have lived, and that's what makes it bittersweet. Bailey's life from beginning to end is a story of saving other people from themselves. Bailey must first save his brother from drowning (and loses hearing in one ear as punishment). Bailey must save the family business from being dissolved into Potter's regime. Bailey must save money for his brother to go to college instead of him, and when his brother finally does return, he has no intention of going back to the family business. Bailey must save his Uncle from ruining the Building and Loan and jail time by being visited by everyone in town with money to give. It's hard to imagine how much better Bailey's life would've been without his burden. Indeed he might've changed the world.
Mr. Potter - an Evil Without a Cause
So throughout the movie we are introduced to George Bailey's principled rival Mr. Potter. Potter apparently is an outrageously rich man that builds slums and carries people to the grave with high interest rates. Bailey on the other hand is a family made and run business that builds better houses, offers bigger better loans, and has much lower of an interest rate. Seem something odd here? How are Bailey's houses better? He could only build two or three before the account would be overdrawn. There's only so many handouts you can give before the levy breaks. This is a reminder of the attempt by our U.S. Government to put everyone in a house with a bath. Potter doesn't talk about that. Potter talks about killing people's dreams, and he steals money and he can't even walk. The opposition is George Bailey, a handsome man with money from somewhere who builds incredible houses out of thin air. The real estate in our country was utterly destroyed because of the way we made grand houses with artificial interests rates, yet we cheer everytime we watch it on TV.
Like most movies we are supposed to not like Mr. Potter because we are told not to like him. Like Cinderella Man, a man must be personified as unspeakably evil in order to establish a conflict and a hero. What if Russel Crowe was beating the crap out of Rocky. That wouldn't make since. Give him a man who does not exist. Give him a "bear". The man in this movie literally killed for fun, and had the middle ground of boxing to save him from law. He was rude, shallow, aggressive, and dangerous. Potter is such a character. Unfortunately I consider this lazy and radical as I have never met a man like Mr. Potter. If a man acted like Mr. Potter, he would wind up without a business let alone a rude disposition. You're telling me that he makes expensive slums with high interest rates, and people still buy them? Everyone crawls back to Potter? What does that even mean? Potter should've been building the better houses for cheaper because he could. He could've pushed the Bailey business right off the cliff with it's monetary muscle. Bailey builds the better houses for cheaper? That doesn't make since. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Mr. Potter is senile, legless, emotionless, and rude. Potter steals, swindles, and maims whoever stands in his way. And you wonder why people hate businessmen. People hate them because we are told we must hate them. While they provide interstellar telescopes, supersonic engines, and smooth tile, we must give them curses as their payment.
"You sit around here and you spin your little webs and you think the whole world revolves around you and your money. Well, it doesn't, Mr. Potter. In the whole vast configuration of things, I'd say you were nothing but a scurvy little spider."
Oh I'm sorry it does. It does when you come begging to him for more money and it does matter that your life is turned around because of money. People treat money like a disease. Run from the man who says that money is the root of all evil. He either has a knife to your throat or a hand in your pocket.
And Then I'm Going to Build Things...
"I'm shakin' the dust of this crummy little town off my feet and I'm gonna see the world. Italy, Greece, the Parthenon, the Colosseum. Then, I'm comin' back here to go to college and see what they know. And then I'm gonna build things. I'm gonna build airfields, I'm gonna build skyscrapers a hundred stories high, I'm gonna build bridges a mile long... "
You know what God did to the Tower of Babel? He killed it. He killed ambition with changed language. You know what happened to George Bailey's dreams and hopes? Obliterated. Destroyed under circumstance and a passion to "do what's right." But what is right? Was it right for George's brother Harry to leave him to rot in that dusty old town. Was it right for his Uncle's problem to fall upon George's shoulders.
Harry went to college instead of George. What did Harry do at college? He became a football player...
George Bailey was so talented and passionate he could have led the world in architecture! He could've built things that people would've never thought possible. He could've lived a grand life that would be built of brick and mortar and dirt and cement, and glass and industry. Harry just played football.
Men and women hate ambition. We can say that we don't but we are taught from day one that ambition leads to a pride, and since Greek plays, pride is the downfall of anyone. Wealth gained from ambition will only lead you to hell, unless you can get a camel to go through the eye of a needle.
This movie feels insulting, and it's insulting because we are supposed to rejoice with George Bailey because although he didn't want to exist, he was wrong, and that his small life was everything it should've been: a wonderful one. Unfortunately that's not the point I got. The point was whether or not George Bailey should've existed, the point was whether or not he should've seen the world. Every time I watch this movie, I secretly hope that George Bailey takes one look at the head chairman of the board, and says, "then I'll see you in hell!" as he kicks the door open and walks into the sunlight. But everytime the music cue kicks in, and he wildly reconsiders his life, and gives his college money to Harry Bailey.
And what's worse is George Bailey actually sees it and feels it happening to him. By the time he returns to Mary after greeting his brother from the train, Bailey is having an early life crisis. He has a deeply affectionate feeling toward Mary, but he knows that marrying her would be the final shot that would sink his dreams. Mary tries as hard as she can to woo the dashing George Bailey. She even plays "Buffalo Gal" to recreate the nostalgic scene after the high school dance. Bailey is overwhelmingly avoidant however, and does not see her. Bailey has done nothing but sacrifice his whole life. Is marrying Mary a sacrifice? No, because he wants her, but it could be a yes if deep down inside his dream was more powerful. That hurts to think about but a sacrifice is trading something you value more for something you value less. Bailey sacfrificed his honeymoon money. Bailey sacrificed his college chance. Bailey sacrificed his ear.
Bailey sacrificed his whole life. And all we can do is applaud and wish that more people were like George Bailey. We wish there were more people that would become sacrificial animals like George. We scream and shout like a Coliseum for more noble blood to be shed to pay for our own incompetence. George Bailey should never have had to do what he did. But he did it. Is that supposed to make him heroic? Tragically heroic.
Here's to George Bailey, the Poorest Man in Town
The big dumb ending, where the town literally buys out the company and George Bailey. Do you really think this would happen in real life? "What a swindler!" they would shout, "I knew it all along." People would assume he did keep all that money, and despite their personal relationship they would let him rot. Are we really supposed to believe the town would be nothing but bars and strip joints if George Bailey had not existed. It was said earlier that Mr. Potter owns pretty much everything except the Bailey Building and Loan. Is Potter's whole goal in life to build awful establishments? Mr. Potter is worse than the devil apparently. He shows not attempt to better his business but is more willing to seduce his people to sex and alcohol.
Of course George Bailey wants to live. Would he even have noticed if he had not existed? Does that make any sense? I know now that life would be terrible if I had not existed. How can anyone draw that conclusion? It cannot be terrible if you did not even exist! It's going to look pretty glim if your wife does not recognize you and the business does not exist. What does that prove? It only proves that life is worth existing.
Really? Everybody knows this. People would be committing suicide right and left otherwise. Apparently to George Bailey's life though, it's not worth living. It isn't if no matter how hard you work you've still got uncle's that'll clumsily send you to JAIL! It isn't if you are a puppet to a town and a tool to your brother. It isn't if you don't have Zu-Zu's petals I guess...
I have a hard time believing the ending. Of course it's heroic and portrays what life should be, but what's more tragic is that it does exactly that. How many George Bailey's are out there? How many have been utterly destroyed by expectations and passionate belief in sacrifice.
The movies is on in the other room, and I cannot bear to watch. I will not sit there and watch an American Dream die like so many others have for so long.
It Could've Been a Wonderful Life
What if George Bailey had gone out that door? What if he appeared on the front of TIME magazine for being an intellectual pioneer of his time. What if he acheived his dream? He would've died anyway?
You moral cannibals. Can't you see what's at stake here? It's not George Bailey's life it is our very soul, and they are going to cut it apart, piece by piece, until they have us by the neck. It is people like Bailey that could change the world if we would have the constitution to let him go and figure out the Bailey Building and Loan for ourselves. It's our moral code that's in danger, and yet people still applaud to the sound of Bailey's spiritual death. It's a Wonderul Life tapped into something terrible. It blatantly exposes a cruel underbelly of what happens when people cannot do things on our own. What if George Bailey had been the Government? We would rave and go on about how they couldn't control or lives or run things, but put a man on the torture rack and we claim that we could not live on without George Bailey.
We like It's a Wonderful Life but why do we like it?
Friday, December 24, 2010
Friday, December 17, 2010
Go Away
There’s a man who always asks for more. He is a man without a higher expectations. He craves victory in the most perfect sense. He shows no emotion, he shows no praise for anything less. He is always in my presence. He will never ever let this go. I will never live anything down. He is my best friend and worst enemy. There is nothing I can do to appease the monster. He is always looking back, but is always disappointed. He shows no regard for tact of manner.
And as I sit here typing, he is guarding and watching every word. He is criticizing the eloquence, he is destroying its intention. Memories are always weak to him. Regrets are always likely. I can do no right for him. I can do no write for him. Constantly looking over my shoulder like a black raven. He won’t leave. Not for a plane crash and not for an overnight sleep. I will not be left alone to be myself. It’s a reflection that I cannot ignore. Perhaps someday I will understand or even make content my partner. Then maybe at that time I will finally have become competent. But until then as I look into a mirror, he always looks back. And I always will think that I ruined my own life.
And as I sit here typing, he is guarding and watching every word. He is criticizing the eloquence, he is destroying its intention. Memories are always weak to him. Regrets are always likely. I can do no right for him. I can do no write for him. Constantly looking over my shoulder like a black raven. He won’t leave. Not for a plane crash and not for an overnight sleep. I will not be left alone to be myself. It’s a reflection that I cannot ignore. Perhaps someday I will understand or even make content my partner. Then maybe at that time I will finally have become competent. But until then as I look into a mirror, he always looks back. And I always will think that I ruined my own life.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Denton: A Wonderland
I love Denton. It’s a place where protests arise on any topic from abortion, to gay rights, to stopping a limited war.
I love how the sun shines in between the clock tower of the administration building and rests on the falling leaves of autumn. I’m enamored by the dress style of Denton: the more homeless you look and more facial hair you have, the better.
I love pipe smoking old folks hanging on by their nails outside of coffee shops, watching the world turn while they are standing still.
I cannot escape the lights that surround Denton square, and point to everything incredible.
I love Recycled books, a three story corner store of thousands of years of information, stories, and smells.
I can taste Roosters burgers and Fuzzy’s Tacos as I speak now. I can savor every bite of beautiful barbeque sushi and pork nachos, respectively.
I love the rise to the environmental science building and the fall to Wooten hall. I love how there’s more cigarette smoke than oxygen around Bruce, the Language building, and again Wooten Hall. I enjoy running up and tapping people I know, and then embracing them and talking loudly so that we are noticed.
I cannot avoid checking out hundreds of movies for free in the Chilton Media Library. Thank you for supplying over 200 movies that we have watched without cost. Denton is the zone of freedom: “Discover the power of ideas.” It’s not College Station, or Austin, or Lubbock, or Houston, and THAT’S exactly why we love it.
I adore having a crappy football team. I adore that as not our definition of a college. I enjoy a world full of people without school pride. Our pride is no pride, we are there to learn, get a degree, and enjoy life. We don’t follow an occult. And even though I hate environmentalism to the most fundamental level, I’m proud that we offer the best doctorate program in the field in the country.
There’s nothing like perking your ear toward the music building at 1 PM to hear the best jazz you’ll ever hear.
I cannot help but stare at the alcoholic zombies that exit the bars on Fry, laughing like air raid sirens as their sober buddies struggle to point them in the right direction.
I laugh at how horrible Eagle Camp was. The little worthless attempts to recruit me as I ventured from activity to activity made me feel oddly powerful as the world grouped up around me.
I cannot help but look with awe at the Pohl Recreation Center and know that at any time I can run on a treadmill, or ride a stationary bike, or lift free weights, or do resistance, and finish it all off with a hot tub or pool cherry on top.
Denton’s true form is at night, with lights on every step. Like a spiral galaxy, so many bright things that are noticed loud and soft.
TWU’s twin towers are almost always in view any way you drive. It’s there, like towers of Babel, refusing to let down as they are accelerated ever onward.
I’m glad that we have an apartment across the street from an educational marvel, and enlightenment is just a hundred or so yards in a direction.
I love a neighbor that talks about conspiracy theories and God and angels as aliens completely straight faced…
I love a people that only ask your previous life once, and then don’t bother with a past that to them is irrelevant.
The sound that a zippo lighter makes as it clicks through history, signifying that this life is just like the previous ones.
The greasy side liners that show up at midnight release to Watchmen.
The wondrous hordes that showed for a midnight with Harry Potter.
The popcorn throwing, loud mouthed, hilarious nuggets that showed up for midnight Machete.
The tight polo shirted attendees to a midnight of Inception.
I love the pizza rivalry of Crooked Crust, and Hot Box, and how I’m actively involved in the production of both as a pizza Pocahontas.
Nothing feels better than playing video games at Collin Gillespie, Ryan Steele, James Venable, and Chris Dant’s house.
I love how Verde catering employees are just on the wrong side of crazy.
I thoroughly miss the OC with Marissa and Marinna.
I always want a better life that I cannot see or taste or touch.
I don’t want what is right in front of me.
I often gawk at the counter in the Environmental Science building as it reads, “World Population.”
I have sworn to myself as I see sculptures of giant cities and then next to it see, “resource rationing.”
I have sometimes hated myself for even being in the recreation center.
I have stared at the moon for a straight thirty minutes, wondering if that’s all there is.
I always think about the past.
I miss the Bruce Hall cafeteria.
I miss the incompetent attempts at communication.
I wonder how much I’ve changed. I look at myself in the mirror so much because I keep seeing a stranger.
I love and hate random Break.com videos with Caleb.
I always love a chat with Zane.
I look forward to the wrath of history teachers.
I think back on what I’ve read only to realize I’ve hardly read anything at all.
I really do feel like I was an idiot in high school. I may still be an idiot.
Denton brings all these things out. And I wonder if this would’ve happened anywhere else. The aura of Denton is wonderland, with smoking caterpillars around every corner, with a red queen in the classroom, with a Cheshire cat behind every dark alley. There’s some overwhelming force that keeps me coming back. It’s like that old feeling of New York. The city of dreams, the Big Apple. New York now sounds like a dying breed. It’s washed out, dirty, tired. And of course Denton is no New York, but it’s something of an idealistic wonder to me. I cannot escape its dream pull into free fall as I watch the past pull up and the future spring down.
But then I’ll return home, and home feels so far away that Denton feels like reality. And I’ll do everything to get back here. I’ll do anything to claw and scratch onto what I have left. High School feels so outdated. College would be an awfully big adventure, and after and beyond is no different than the moon. A big expanse that’s so quiet, it can hardly be said to have existed at all. And when you lean over and pick up the gray dust that makes up its surface, you find you’re right back where you started. And even the next layer is dust, and the layer after that. Gray on Gray.
But Denton will always be there. There will always be Wassail Fest as friends and family gather around some find music and fun. There will always be finals and the promise of a better future. There will always be smokers near Bruce who think they have the world figured out.
And just like home, I can return and realize that Denton was also just a dream, a wonderland. It lives on, but only in memories, and even those fade away.
I was young once. Once, when I dreamed of flying ships and fame and fortune and eternity on the lips of men. I was young when thoughts of the sixties sounded better than now. I was young when I lived in Denton, and carved out my story in sand, that spun away the moment I left.
“All we ever see of stars are their old photographs.” -Dr. Manhattan, on Mars.
I love how the sun shines in between the clock tower of the administration building and rests on the falling leaves of autumn. I’m enamored by the dress style of Denton: the more homeless you look and more facial hair you have, the better.
I love pipe smoking old folks hanging on by their nails outside of coffee shops, watching the world turn while they are standing still.
I cannot escape the lights that surround Denton square, and point to everything incredible.
I love Recycled books, a three story corner store of thousands of years of information, stories, and smells.
I can taste Roosters burgers and Fuzzy’s Tacos as I speak now. I can savor every bite of beautiful barbeque sushi and pork nachos, respectively.
I love the rise to the environmental science building and the fall to Wooten hall. I love how there’s more cigarette smoke than oxygen around Bruce, the Language building, and again Wooten Hall. I enjoy running up and tapping people I know, and then embracing them and talking loudly so that we are noticed.
I cannot avoid checking out hundreds of movies for free in the Chilton Media Library. Thank you for supplying over 200 movies that we have watched without cost. Denton is the zone of freedom: “Discover the power of ideas.” It’s not College Station, or Austin, or Lubbock, or Houston, and THAT’S exactly why we love it.
I adore having a crappy football team. I adore that as not our definition of a college. I enjoy a world full of people without school pride. Our pride is no pride, we are there to learn, get a degree, and enjoy life. We don’t follow an occult. And even though I hate environmentalism to the most fundamental level, I’m proud that we offer the best doctorate program in the field in the country.
There’s nothing like perking your ear toward the music building at 1 PM to hear the best jazz you’ll ever hear.
I cannot help but stare at the alcoholic zombies that exit the bars on Fry, laughing like air raid sirens as their sober buddies struggle to point them in the right direction.
I laugh at how horrible Eagle Camp was. The little worthless attempts to recruit me as I ventured from activity to activity made me feel oddly powerful as the world grouped up around me.
I cannot help but look with awe at the Pohl Recreation Center and know that at any time I can run on a treadmill, or ride a stationary bike, or lift free weights, or do resistance, and finish it all off with a hot tub or pool cherry on top.
Denton’s true form is at night, with lights on every step. Like a spiral galaxy, so many bright things that are noticed loud and soft.
TWU’s twin towers are almost always in view any way you drive. It’s there, like towers of Babel, refusing to let down as they are accelerated ever onward.
I’m glad that we have an apartment across the street from an educational marvel, and enlightenment is just a hundred or so yards in a direction.
I love a neighbor that talks about conspiracy theories and God and angels as aliens completely straight faced…
I love a people that only ask your previous life once, and then don’t bother with a past that to them is irrelevant.
The sound that a zippo lighter makes as it clicks through history, signifying that this life is just like the previous ones.
The greasy side liners that show up at midnight release to Watchmen.
The wondrous hordes that showed for a midnight with Harry Potter.
The popcorn throwing, loud mouthed, hilarious nuggets that showed up for midnight Machete.
The tight polo shirted attendees to a midnight of Inception.
I love the pizza rivalry of Crooked Crust, and Hot Box, and how I’m actively involved in the production of both as a pizza Pocahontas.
Nothing feels better than playing video games at Collin Gillespie, Ryan Steele, James Venable, and Chris Dant’s house.
I love how Verde catering employees are just on the wrong side of crazy.
I thoroughly miss the OC with Marissa and Marinna.
I always want a better life that I cannot see or taste or touch.
I don’t want what is right in front of me.
I often gawk at the counter in the Environmental Science building as it reads, “World Population.”
I have sworn to myself as I see sculptures of giant cities and then next to it see, “resource rationing.”
I have sometimes hated myself for even being in the recreation center.
I have stared at the moon for a straight thirty minutes, wondering if that’s all there is.
I always think about the past.
I miss the Bruce Hall cafeteria.
I miss the incompetent attempts at communication.
I wonder how much I’ve changed. I look at myself in the mirror so much because I keep seeing a stranger.
I love and hate random Break.com videos with Caleb.
I always love a chat with Zane.
I look forward to the wrath of history teachers.
I think back on what I’ve read only to realize I’ve hardly read anything at all.
I really do feel like I was an idiot in high school. I may still be an idiot.
Denton brings all these things out. And I wonder if this would’ve happened anywhere else. The aura of Denton is wonderland, with smoking caterpillars around every corner, with a red queen in the classroom, with a Cheshire cat behind every dark alley. There’s some overwhelming force that keeps me coming back. It’s like that old feeling of New York. The city of dreams, the Big Apple. New York now sounds like a dying breed. It’s washed out, dirty, tired. And of course Denton is no New York, but it’s something of an idealistic wonder to me. I cannot escape its dream pull into free fall as I watch the past pull up and the future spring down.
But then I’ll return home, and home feels so far away that Denton feels like reality. And I’ll do everything to get back here. I’ll do anything to claw and scratch onto what I have left. High School feels so outdated. College would be an awfully big adventure, and after and beyond is no different than the moon. A big expanse that’s so quiet, it can hardly be said to have existed at all. And when you lean over and pick up the gray dust that makes up its surface, you find you’re right back where you started. And even the next layer is dust, and the layer after that. Gray on Gray.
But Denton will always be there. There will always be Wassail Fest as friends and family gather around some find music and fun. There will always be finals and the promise of a better future. There will always be smokers near Bruce who think they have the world figured out.
And just like home, I can return and realize that Denton was also just a dream, a wonderland. It lives on, but only in memories, and even those fade away.
I was young once. Once, when I dreamed of flying ships and fame and fortune and eternity on the lips of men. I was young when thoughts of the sixties sounded better than now. I was young when I lived in Denton, and carved out my story in sand, that spun away the moment I left.
“All we ever see of stars are their old photographs.” -Dr. Manhattan, on Mars.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Disneyworld, the Magician Who Revealed his Trick
I’m sitting next to my Spanish oral interview partner, Stacey, and we’re discussing movies, TV, and music. These things are easy and discussable, and most likely will give us the best scores. What’s interesting about a foreign language is it takes mundane conversation and makes it the most important. No one wants to talk about politics, or the environment, or food allergies. People just want to talk about the basic fundamentals, which is ironic and slightly rewarding because maybe those things actually matter most. And while we were eventually inadvertently split up by some stupid woman who did her oral interview later, we ended up discussing Disney movies, and Disney princesses.
Colton: I like Belle. She has ambition, is hardworking, and is intelligent.
Stacey: I don’t like Beast. And any girl who falls in love with Beast is crazy, because he is crazy
Colton: Okay well what about Jasmine? She fell for Aladdin? Isn’t he a nice guy?
Stacey: Jasmine is a slut. She dresses like a slut, and she falls for the first guy she meets her age in some Arabian street market. All guys want a Jasmine.
Colton: Okay you win there, but how about Arial? She has this amazing ambition for being on land and wants to experience something new, like Belle?
Stacey: Also a slut. Shells for an outfit? And no one wants to live in a fish fin, so as far as that’s concerned she’s just like everyone else.
Colton: So you’re set on Cinderella?
Stacey: Yes! She’s hardworking, has great music, dresses modestly, doesn’t ask for many favors, and ends up marrying a prince? Because out of everyone, she really deserves it.
And while this conversation will never deter my infatuation with Belle, it does make me feel decadent and old. To explain this, we need to discuss Disneyworld.
Disneyworld is a place of magic. Don’t believe those assholes who say it’s them just trying to sell us the corporate image and make us accept the future. The fact of the matter is we are all part of it because we all drink Coca-Cola (or Pepsi for you crazies) and buy groceries and wash our cars and turn on our TV’s and we are boxed in or let loose by it. But when I went to Disneyworld on the eve of the year 2000, my life was forever changed by the place. It’s an amusement park that produces a jokingly cartoonish world, and takes itself seriously and pulls it off. This makes me insulted at Astroworld and makes me glad that it was closed in the Houston area. It’s important to understand that Astroworld at that time was filled with hooligans and vandals and this behavior was condoned. Disneyworld did not tolerate this kind of plot hole. I’ve been to several meetings about information about becoming an employee for Disneyworld, and it’s no cake walk. You must act like the location you are in. You are paid, fed, and housed, and you are theirs for a summer. Disneyworld presents several wondrous environments, each filled with detail, spit shined floors and walls, and incredible customer service. For those that are young, it’s a chance to experience something grand. For those that are old, it’s a chance to relish on a life filled with Disney. Disney is so large by now that it has literally become magical and inhabits everything you want in life. But I fear the nostalgia is something that is also dying. It’s all falling apart. It doesn’t matter how clean and taken care of Disneyworld is, it will always be too late. And no matter what they do, they will disappoint somebody.
It’s interesting going to Disneyworld. You’ve got interesting rides like Pirates of the Caribbean where kids expect Johnny Depp and get a slow boat ride filled with robotic pirates on Tortuga just looking for a good time. But you go to TomorrowLand and you have Buzz Lightyear’s shooter ride that makes you wonder if 1995s Toy Story was really the future. Disney, while it grows with it’s audience has inadvertently become stuck in time with Disneyworld, and that’s a problem when you consider the direction they are heading.
The last movie to feature a “Disney princess” in my opinion was Tarzan or Mulan in 1999 and 1998 respectively. If you look at the history of Disney classics, princesses were so our generation. And by my generation I’m talking about Lion King, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Pocahantas, Hercules, and Beauty and the Beast. The only ones that were left our were Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Robin Hood (kind of), and Lady in the Tramp (also kind of). I do understand that the three outside of our lifetime are pretty much the BIG four, but it’s interesting that I’m making a fuss out of this.
But I am, because for the past ten to twelve years, the only movie that was made with a specific princess was Princess and the Frog, and what it showed was something abundantly clear: the intellectual ideas of princesses are done, smoke, over. While this makes women happy because they no longer have to conform to certain archetypes, it makes me wonder about Disneyworld.
Are little girls going to flabbergasted and scared out of their wits when they see a disney princess? They don’t know them, at all. Unless their parents made them watch those when they were little, these princesses will look like moving Barbie dolls unless they have a story behind them.
Now there’s only one other place I can think of that this is more exaggerated and that’s AstroWorld. Looney Toones are so extinct it’s ridiculous. Their slapstick humor was replaced by better animated slapstick humor, a process that may last for eternity. Seriously I haven’t seen a legitimate looney toon episode for years. That’s why Six Flags seriously redefined themselves…with some old guy dancing to techno.
It may be just me not coping with getting older, but my fear is placed on Disneyworld, not DisneyColton, because although Disney is going a different direction it will not appease anyone paying to go there. People who grew up with Disney princesses have to endure Treasure Planet, Lilo and Stitch, Meet the Robinsons, and Bolt. If you look at Disney, to me it has fallen apart. The magic of Disney for youth has easily been replaced with Pixar. Pixar has a firm understanding of the future. Although the technology catches the eye at first, it’s the overwhelming excellent stories of Up, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Wall-E, and Toy Story that makes Pixar magic.
I really loved Disneyworld as a kid, but I’m scared of going there again. How will I feel about seeing teenagers being princesses that are largely forgotten? But what can they do? If they remove princesses entirely it pisses adults off but if they remove the current works, they present a boring unknown environment for kids. They’re stuck. They have to keep filling Disneyworld with so much old and new that it very well may implode on itself. Pirates of the Caribbean will always be old and creepy, and Buzz Lightyear’s light saber space trek or whatever will always be in Tomorrowland because it’s futuristic, but it’s not really tomorrow. Maybe that’s the magic about Disneyworld. It’s a dream world, but unlike Wonderland, it makes sense, and it takes itself seriously. Disney was a magician that led the world, but they really did reveal the trick. Disney may have become too large for its own good. Maybe Disney just isn’t as big as my imagination wants them to be. It’s just another part of getting older I guess.
Colton: I like Belle. She has ambition, is hardworking, and is intelligent.
Stacey: I don’t like Beast. And any girl who falls in love with Beast is crazy, because he is crazy
Colton: Okay well what about Jasmine? She fell for Aladdin? Isn’t he a nice guy?
Stacey: Jasmine is a slut. She dresses like a slut, and she falls for the first guy she meets her age in some Arabian street market. All guys want a Jasmine.
Colton: Okay you win there, but how about Arial? She has this amazing ambition for being on land and wants to experience something new, like Belle?
Stacey: Also a slut. Shells for an outfit? And no one wants to live in a fish fin, so as far as that’s concerned she’s just like everyone else.
Colton: So you’re set on Cinderella?
Stacey: Yes! She’s hardworking, has great music, dresses modestly, doesn’t ask for many favors, and ends up marrying a prince? Because out of everyone, she really deserves it.
And while this conversation will never deter my infatuation with Belle, it does make me feel decadent and old. To explain this, we need to discuss Disneyworld.
Disneyworld is a place of magic. Don’t believe those assholes who say it’s them just trying to sell us the corporate image and make us accept the future. The fact of the matter is we are all part of it because we all drink Coca-Cola (or Pepsi for you crazies) and buy groceries and wash our cars and turn on our TV’s and we are boxed in or let loose by it. But when I went to Disneyworld on the eve of the year 2000, my life was forever changed by the place. It’s an amusement park that produces a jokingly cartoonish world, and takes itself seriously and pulls it off. This makes me insulted at Astroworld and makes me glad that it was closed in the Houston area. It’s important to understand that Astroworld at that time was filled with hooligans and vandals and this behavior was condoned. Disneyworld did not tolerate this kind of plot hole. I’ve been to several meetings about information about becoming an employee for Disneyworld, and it’s no cake walk. You must act like the location you are in. You are paid, fed, and housed, and you are theirs for a summer. Disneyworld presents several wondrous environments, each filled with detail, spit shined floors and walls, and incredible customer service. For those that are young, it’s a chance to experience something grand. For those that are old, it’s a chance to relish on a life filled with Disney. Disney is so large by now that it has literally become magical and inhabits everything you want in life. But I fear the nostalgia is something that is also dying. It’s all falling apart. It doesn’t matter how clean and taken care of Disneyworld is, it will always be too late. And no matter what they do, they will disappoint somebody.
It’s interesting going to Disneyworld. You’ve got interesting rides like Pirates of the Caribbean where kids expect Johnny Depp and get a slow boat ride filled with robotic pirates on Tortuga just looking for a good time. But you go to TomorrowLand and you have Buzz Lightyear’s shooter ride that makes you wonder if 1995s Toy Story was really the future. Disney, while it grows with it’s audience has inadvertently become stuck in time with Disneyworld, and that’s a problem when you consider the direction they are heading.
The last movie to feature a “Disney princess” in my opinion was Tarzan or Mulan in 1999 and 1998 respectively. If you look at the history of Disney classics, princesses were so our generation. And by my generation I’m talking about Lion King, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Pocahantas, Hercules, and Beauty and the Beast. The only ones that were left our were Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Robin Hood (kind of), and Lady in the Tramp (also kind of). I do understand that the three outside of our lifetime are pretty much the BIG four, but it’s interesting that I’m making a fuss out of this.
But I am, because for the past ten to twelve years, the only movie that was made with a specific princess was Princess and the Frog, and what it showed was something abundantly clear: the intellectual ideas of princesses are done, smoke, over. While this makes women happy because they no longer have to conform to certain archetypes, it makes me wonder about Disneyworld.
Are little girls going to flabbergasted and scared out of their wits when they see a disney princess? They don’t know them, at all. Unless their parents made them watch those when they were little, these princesses will look like moving Barbie dolls unless they have a story behind them.
Now there’s only one other place I can think of that this is more exaggerated and that’s AstroWorld. Looney Toones are so extinct it’s ridiculous. Their slapstick humor was replaced by better animated slapstick humor, a process that may last for eternity. Seriously I haven’t seen a legitimate looney toon episode for years. That’s why Six Flags seriously redefined themselves…with some old guy dancing to techno.
It may be just me not coping with getting older, but my fear is placed on Disneyworld, not DisneyColton, because although Disney is going a different direction it will not appease anyone paying to go there. People who grew up with Disney princesses have to endure Treasure Planet, Lilo and Stitch, Meet the Robinsons, and Bolt. If you look at Disney, to me it has fallen apart. The magic of Disney for youth has easily been replaced with Pixar. Pixar has a firm understanding of the future. Although the technology catches the eye at first, it’s the overwhelming excellent stories of Up, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Wall-E, and Toy Story that makes Pixar magic.
I really loved Disneyworld as a kid, but I’m scared of going there again. How will I feel about seeing teenagers being princesses that are largely forgotten? But what can they do? If they remove princesses entirely it pisses adults off but if they remove the current works, they present a boring unknown environment for kids. They’re stuck. They have to keep filling Disneyworld with so much old and new that it very well may implode on itself. Pirates of the Caribbean will always be old and creepy, and Buzz Lightyear’s light saber space trek or whatever will always be in Tomorrowland because it’s futuristic, but it’s not really tomorrow. Maybe that’s the magic about Disneyworld. It’s a dream world, but unlike Wonderland, it makes sense, and it takes itself seriously. Disney was a magician that led the world, but they really did reveal the trick. Disney may have become too large for its own good. Maybe Disney just isn’t as big as my imagination wants them to be. It’s just another part of getting older I guess.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Mediocrity
Bullets are flying, and I need air support. Venezualen radicals fighting in a revolution and I’m in their way. The sun is setting as huge billowing clouds of smoke arise from destroyed jeeps and Armored Personnel Carriers. I can barely see a light tank on an opposite hill firing shells in my face. I am inevitably doomed. If only I had the air support to provide cover as I’m running through the smoke and through the sun. Suddenly, rocket propelled grenades are shot from all sides, and I’m dead. I’m nothing more than a withering hulk thrown against the side of a ship of chaos.
But suddenly I’m back, ready to die again. My wounds are healed, and there is a pistol in my hand. There is a jeep outside and another mission waiting for me. This is not real life. This is me playing the thoroughly mediocre video game Mercenaries 2: World in Flames and even though there is nothing in this game I haven’t seen elsewhere, it speaks to me as I live through one of the terrible moments in my life.
Sequel to Pandemic’s hit game Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction it becomes quite clear what the underlying theme of their games are: “blow shit up.” Pandemic also brought games like Star Wars Battlefront , a game where you blew shit up in Star Wars. And like some, well maybe most games out there, it attempts to be an escape rather than a piece of art. So the Mercenaries franchise simply places a plot like, “someone is taking over a government” so you can have multiple factions competing for power, and then have someone like you, a mercenary to take missions from all sides. Because you don’t care about the conflict, you care about the money. To the player however, all you care about is the destruction.
And while the first game was received rather well, Mercenaries 2: World in Flames was almost an unmitigated disaster. “That Mercenaries 2: World in Flames isn't better seriously bums me out. Even in its current state you can see so much potential for breakneck, anarchic fun, which makes its laundry list of problems that much more frustrating.” said GiantBomb.com’s own Ryan Davis. It seems like a lot of potential was possible on theXbox 360 rather than the original, but it just did not get used. However, the game was not a complete failure. Ryan Davis also states: “The thing is, for all its problems, the basic act of blowing shit up in Mercenaries 2 is incontrovertibly awesome. The way a jeep will flip up into the air in a fiery ball; the wince-inducing white flash of an exploding oil container; the belching dust and debris of a crumbling building; these things are all immensely satisfying, and they make up for a lot of the shortcomings in Mercenaries 2.”
This is to me, a pure classification of something that is mediocre. When you’re the best of the worst and the worst of the best, you are Mercenaries.
So here I am, playing this so-so game and shooting rockets at tanks, and dodging gunfire, wondering if I will ever escape my own prevailing feeling of self destruction.
Mediocrity feels everywhere. Not just in Garth Brooks’s Friends in Low Places but everywhere. Tyler Durden in Fight Club knows exactly what I’m talking about. And while I cannot stand the thought of being mundane, I unknowingly embrace it. Pall Malls are $4.50 a pack and Big K at Kroger is $2.19 for a 12 pack. You can’t beat that, but it’s almost like I am now embracing the low class things in life as a sort of rebellion. And even that attempt is mundane and has been done before. What do you think Garth Brooks is talking about in that song? It’s a pride thing. It’s saying, “Yea those are my friends, but they’re more than you’ll ever have.”
Stop trying to be perfect. The whole philosophy behind Fight Club doesn’t quite revolve around this, but it is tangentially affected by a rebound from consumerism. I cannot help but be whoever anyone wants me to be. We are who people want us to be. I think people say, “it’s rude to talk about yourself” because people mostly don’t care. And people want me to be mediocre.
C’s are the worst grades in college to get on essays. In one way, you peaked the teacher’s interest enough to keep you from failing. On the other, you still failed to grasp some underlying approach that was key. It’s the kiss of death for your moral.
So when I go into Naval History and come out with a 75 on my ten page essay, I’m angry. I’m really angry. Not only is it a terrible grade, but it is a shot at something I feel I work at a lot and that is my writing. And when something shoots directly at your strengths and cuts them down you wonder if there was a strength there at all. Once again, I could not escape mediocrity. It was there in my very face, on a piece of paper marked 75: pure objective proof that I was a failure. That’s why I hate essays sometimes. You pour all this work into it, when you could just bullshit it and still get a 75, but you don’t even know if that is true.
What is my worth anymore? Betty Draper in Mad Men wonders that after her divorce. How do you define yourself in a world of so many when you are so few. And while Betty is able to woo mechanics into fixing her broken down car late at night by selling something she’ll never give away, I feel a little short. What would Rachel Menken be without that Jewish department store around the corner? It’s hard to find an objective display of your own personal worth. That’s probably why I prefer writing and singing to complete strangers. Because friends always have a preconceived notion to be your friend. They’ll never tell you, “you are quite magnificently mediocre.” What does that even mean? Strangers however, will easily ignore you if you present a mediocre work. Ever been at a high school concert where everyone knew that they were bad, but no one will out right say it?
I’ve always had a problem with mediocrity. As much as I try to avoid its glaring and all encompassing stare, it always seems to come back to me. At one point I thought I was a good football player. That was before I met people like Shane Lockridge in junior high that could grow facial hair before I could grow hair…anywhere. I thought I was a good baseball player. That was before I collapsed under my own insecurity that I was not destined to be great. I thought I was a good singer. That was before I went to UNT, and while I love this college from the bottom of my heart, there was a realization that I was in the ocean, and the ocean was too cold and bottomless for me. So what does someone like Colton Royle do when they get a 75 on a paper? I don’t get drunk. I go to the mall and buy ten dollar Mercenaries, because that is how I want to vent. I want to escape reality and blow up some buildings. And inadvertently I threw myself back into mediocrity without even thinking it.
Do you know why tragedies exist? People hate the idea of someone being that great, so we have to destroy our ideal persona and we are still laughing and cackling in the background. Most of us in our lives will be mediocre, and it pains us to see someone better than us in every way. It hurts me so bad that I cannot breathe. I literally could not think straight on the bus ride to the mall to buy the stupid game that violently reflected this conflict in my mind. And I paid them to do it.
But suddenly I’m back, ready to die again. My wounds are healed, and there is a pistol in my hand. There is a jeep outside and another mission waiting for me. This is not real life. This is me playing the thoroughly mediocre video game Mercenaries 2: World in Flames and even though there is nothing in this game I haven’t seen elsewhere, it speaks to me as I live through one of the terrible moments in my life.
Sequel to Pandemic’s hit game Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction it becomes quite clear what the underlying theme of their games are: “blow shit up.” Pandemic also brought games like Star Wars Battlefront , a game where you blew shit up in Star Wars. And like some, well maybe most games out there, it attempts to be an escape rather than a piece of art. So the Mercenaries franchise simply places a plot like, “someone is taking over a government” so you can have multiple factions competing for power, and then have someone like you, a mercenary to take missions from all sides. Because you don’t care about the conflict, you care about the money. To the player however, all you care about is the destruction.
And while the first game was received rather well, Mercenaries 2: World in Flames was almost an unmitigated disaster. “That Mercenaries 2: World in Flames isn't better seriously bums me out. Even in its current state you can see so much potential for breakneck, anarchic fun, which makes its laundry list of problems that much more frustrating.” said GiantBomb.com’s own Ryan Davis. It seems like a lot of potential was possible on the
This is to me, a pure classification of something that is mediocre. When you’re the best of the worst and the worst of the best, you are Mercenaries.
So here I am, playing this so-so game and shooting rockets at tanks, and dodging gunfire, wondering if I will ever escape my own prevailing feeling of self destruction.
Mediocrity feels everywhere. Not just in Garth Brooks’s Friends in Low Places but everywhere. Tyler Durden in Fight Club knows exactly what I’m talking about. And while I cannot stand the thought of being mundane, I unknowingly embrace it. Pall Malls are $4.50 a pack and Big K at Kroger is $2.19 for a 12 pack. You can’t beat that, but it’s almost like I am now embracing the low class things in life as a sort of rebellion. And even that attempt is mundane and has been done before. What do you think Garth Brooks is talking about in that song? It’s a pride thing. It’s saying, “Yea those are my friends, but they’re more than you’ll ever have.”
Stop trying to be perfect. The whole philosophy behind Fight Club doesn’t quite revolve around this, but it is tangentially affected by a rebound from consumerism. I cannot help but be whoever anyone wants me to be. We are who people want us to be. I think people say, “it’s rude to talk about yourself” because people mostly don’t care. And people want me to be mediocre.
C’s are the worst grades in college to get on essays. In one way, you peaked the teacher’s interest enough to keep you from failing. On the other, you still failed to grasp some underlying approach that was key. It’s the kiss of death for your moral.
So when I go into Naval History and come out with a 75 on my ten page essay, I’m angry. I’m really angry. Not only is it a terrible grade, but it is a shot at something I feel I work at a lot and that is my writing. And when something shoots directly at your strengths and cuts them down you wonder if there was a strength there at all. Once again, I could not escape mediocrity. It was there in my very face, on a piece of paper marked 75: pure objective proof that I was a failure. That’s why I hate essays sometimes. You pour all this work into it, when you could just bullshit it and still get a 75, but you don’t even know if that is true.
What is my worth anymore? Betty Draper in Mad Men wonders that after her divorce. How do you define yourself in a world of so many when you are so few. And while Betty is able to woo mechanics into fixing her broken down car late at night by selling something she’ll never give away, I feel a little short. What would Rachel Menken be without that Jewish department store around the corner? It’s hard to find an objective display of your own personal worth. That’s probably why I prefer writing and singing to complete strangers. Because friends always have a preconceived notion to be your friend. They’ll never tell you, “you are quite magnificently mediocre.” What does that even mean? Strangers however, will easily ignore you if you present a mediocre work. Ever been at a high school concert where everyone knew that they were bad, but no one will out right say it?
I’ve always had a problem with mediocrity. As much as I try to avoid its glaring and all encompassing stare, it always seems to come back to me. At one point I thought I was a good football player. That was before I met people like Shane Lockridge in junior high that could grow facial hair before I could grow hair…anywhere. I thought I was a good baseball player. That was before I collapsed under my own insecurity that I was not destined to be great. I thought I was a good singer. That was before I went to UNT, and while I love this college from the bottom of my heart, there was a realization that I was in the ocean, and the ocean was too cold and bottomless for me. So what does someone like Colton Royle do when they get a 75 on a paper? I don’t get drunk. I go to the mall and buy ten dollar Mercenaries, because that is how I want to vent. I want to escape reality and blow up some buildings. And inadvertently I threw myself back into mediocrity without even thinking it.
Do you know why tragedies exist? People hate the idea of someone being that great, so we have to destroy our ideal persona and we are still laughing and cackling in the background. Most of us in our lives will be mediocre, and it pains us to see someone better than us in every way. It hurts me so bad that I cannot breathe. I literally could not think straight on the bus ride to the mall to buy the stupid game that violently reflected this conflict in my mind. And I paid them to do it.
Monday, December 6, 2010
A Tragedy
Unfortunately in this day and age, it has become absurd and ridiculous to make a mix tape. Technology has far surpassed the idea. Even mixed CD’s, are not only becoming unnecessary to trade around, but Chuck Klosterman said very well that mixed CD’s are in fact impossible. There is no possible way to force the person to listen to a CD all the way through. It was fun apparently to get a mixed tape and be able to sit down and listen to them in order for a certain story to be told. All the stories would insinuate something and it was a thrill to experience a whole segment of a person’s thought. But with CD’s it is difficult, because stories are hard to weave if they’re broken up. And even then, I had not gotten the opportunity.
But then I did.
Friday December 10th, I was invited to someone’s CD mix party. I knew the agenda right away. Everyone makes a mixed CD, brings enough copies for everyone, and everyone gets a copy. Not only would I receive some amazing music, but I would also be able to tell the creative story I had always wanted through music. It was time to write my signature on mixed CD stardom.
So first I had to establish a theme. With so much music, I assumed it would be a casual task: I was wrong. Despite the fact that so much music covers far less subjects, it was difficult to visualize what I wanted. I almost jokingly made my CD just In Rainbows by Radiohead because of my love for them.
But I consider myself not only a deep person, but I am also self aware of my own dark, depressing personality. I understood that I shouldn’t turn away from my strength, but struggle to improve it.
A theme popped first into my head: movie soundtracks. Yes of course. Here was something I could easily visualize, but also pull for it’s thematic elements I had already experienced. But then I needed to take it one step further. This group of soundtracks needed to have a story. And it not only needed to be universal, but it needed to be deep and enthralling. Finally I decided to combine everything: my dark style, my love for soundtracks, my attempt to create a story, and came up with the idea. I had a lot of work to do.
I wanted to create a story of youth, love, and loss. Not only are these all experienced by everyone, but they are some of the deepest and tragic experiences of our lives. Combine this with movie soundtracks, and combine it with a tragic ending, and magic was being made, at least I hoped. The work however, remained on the computer.
1. Youth
I wanted to make the beginning seem energetic and idealistic, but also sweet, reassuring, and charming. I was reluctant to use lyrical songs, because I wanted a pure, but minimalist approach to allow the listener to immerse themselves in the experience. So how to start the CD? I knew eventually that everything begins with either a literal or metaphorical dance. And what better way to describe youth and a beginning with a waltz. The first song, Bethena, is from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and is played throughout the movie. Right off the bat I wanted my listener to know that this song would foreshadow something doomed, but also convey a beautiful feeling of energy. There is a glory in the notes that you hear from the waltz, and it’s young, and it’s exciting. The musicals, the football games, the prom, and the idea of a utopia. It is these feelings that make senior year of high school so grand and exciting. There is so much that has been crossed, but so much more to see. I picture a beautiful woman, and a charming man, under soft floodlights, the piano softly playing. There’s the woman, in Victorian, with the man in a suit, but a suit that shows off his thin tall legs. The line runs perfectly as he one-two-threes with her across a limitless plane of possibility.
But there is a darkness to it, make no mistake about that. With change, comes the good and the bad. It is part of growing up, and now you find yourself alone, without anyone to call your own. But you’re optimistic, even after the sobs in the bed.
2. Idealistic Love
The next song I needed should not only have been still idealistic in love as an emotion, but also convey some somber feeling of the past, and display hope of the future. I found that song in As Time Goes By from the classic Casablanca. The movie is so iconic of western love and in the movie Humphrey Bogart cannot be with the woman she loves, because of the external pressures that force a higher cause. In the song, it conveys the idea of love from a classic romance movie that is hailed as the greatest ever made. It also applies the thought of somber feeling from the plot of the movie, and it also nails the idea of love as eternal. As time goes by, you will find love again. “A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh. The fundamental things apply, as time goes by.”
3. Optimistic Enlightenment
I needed a hurtful, almost unabashed, opaque look at love. It needed to be pure and desired truly. It needed to be simple, but astounding. I continued the idea of love with I Found a Reason straight from V’s jukebox in V for Vendetta. Anyone who’s seen the movie knows that when they dance to it, there’s a complete mental and emotional blockade of the outside world and the anticipation that comes with the next scenes. Eve wants the man, and not the idea. The idea has become so humanized that it hurts for her to accept that V is part of a world that must end that night. And although Eve understands the cost, she is still traumatized and broken down with the death of her man, but the eternity of his idea lives on.
4. A Spark
At long last it was time to commit. The song needed to instigate a love that was personified. It would present the listener with the love of their life. Although it would not continue fully in the song, it would at least establish a human counterpart that is recognizable, and highly desirable. A Whisper of a Thrill from the movie Meet Joe Black was the answer. Anthony Hopkins is addressing to her daughter the sensual escape that love provides. It’s one of the best monologues in film in my opinion, and it represents a take on love that is hard to find anymore. The daughter soon after encounters Brad Pitt, who is very desirable, but his character feels so attainable. Not a bad thing at all, because Pitt’s character does it with a down to earth feeling that makes him nearly perfect. There is the spark, and it’s up to us to fly towards it.
5. Realization
He or she is the ideal. They are what you have aspired to walk with since those years on the dance floor. I needed a favorite of mine, something so iconic and memorable that it capitalized on the glory of loving someone who truly loved you back. A song that said, “I will never let you go.” Transformation from Beauty and the Beast easily fit the bill. Beast was dying, and Belle was cradling the last inch of his life in her arms. At first, there is a feeling that it is too late, and all hope for both of them is lost. But as soon as the lowest point is reached, we are brought with a huge revival and joy that all is well. The song and movie fit. I have always considered Beauty and the Beast my favorite Disney movie, and from start to finish, this song is the theme of the movie. They are yours, and you are theirs, and once again, there is a dance. Only this time, they are there for good.
6. Ups and Downs
No marriage is easy, and I wanted to provide a sweeping soothing song, but it also needed to feel extremely emotional. It needed a lot of movement to reflect the difficulties of marriage. But at the same time, marriage can be sweet and endearing. Cavalliera Ru from Raging Bull was a less known, but satisfactory response. Raging Bull for those who don’t know was a 1980 movie about boxing. Any and every marriage at one time or another is a boxing match, but I did not want that to be the primary focus. This song has so much emotion in it. I wanted those large high notes and contrasting low notes to exaggerate the “ups and downs” of marriage. The bookends of the song provide a sweet melody however, that continues to reassure us that “love conquers all.”
7. Tragic Loss
Anyone who has seen Up knows why I used Married Life as the turning point of the CD. I needed a way to convey to the listener that the road stopped abruptly. Car accidents, disease, war, crime, are all things that exist and affect us in terrible ways. I wanted to establish an artificial ending to a marriage that was not quite complete. And while the couple in Up had a finished scrapbook, there was very little there for this story. It ended harshly, and it ended horribly. It does happen, and it happens often.
8. Why does She have to Die?
In my movie favorites, the loss that is most memorable to me is accompanied with the song Why Does She Have to Die? in Finding Neverland. Everybody asks why. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why are we here? Why did she have to die? And the most truthful answer is Johnny Depp’s “I don’t know.” Kate Winslet’s character, a beautiful vibrant woman was cut down by disease despite the fact that everyone adored her and loved her deeply. Peter is left with confusion as this is his other parent, leaving him and the other Davies’ alone. And once again, although the human is lost, the idea is still there. “She is on every page of your imagination.”
9. Comatose
You can’t work, you can’t sleep, and you can’t eat. The indention on the other side of your bed is no longer there. The calendar has no markings. The refrigerator lacks small love notes magnetized to itself. The nights are long, and the days repeat themselves. You feel nothing. Memories (Someone We’ll Never Know) from the movie Moon with Sam Rockwell is a bit of a stretch, but I think its dissonance and resonance create space. The echo and somber notes create a giant world that fills a speck that is us. But it does very little else with the space. It merely places us there to experience the empty nothing of highly regrettable loss.
10. Condolences
Funeral arrangements. Flowers. Black. You wish there was more you could do, but there would have never been enough. For now, Song for Bob from The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is the song that provides a yearning for the lost. It stretches emotion but it’s western style gives it a rural alienating feeling. The repetition of the melody is an attempt to bring them back, failing each time. I wanted this to be an official “beginning of the end” segment of the CD. I wanted the listener to understand that there was no going back, and you cannot change the past.
11. Weight
Gortoz a Ran from Blackhawk Down provided a weight to loss that I fail to write in words. Comrades lost in battle is always a feeling that only they can understand. Those men will always be heroes, but it still does not take away from the heaviness that we all feel from lost men and women. A foreign language really provided a misunderstanding and hopeless tone that I really liked and respected.
12. Anger
Nothing. And it’s killing you. The Immolation Scene from Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is horrifying to listen to and melancholy to say the least. I wanted a frustrating feeling of despair and loss. I wanted broken wine glasses and stained walls from an all out destruction of will and hope. The burning alive and suffering of Anakin Skywalker leaves a chilling feeling down your spine. Everything that Anakin fought for, everything he thought he stood for was ripped from him and destroyed that day. And he burned for it. His loss of humanity nearly cost him his life. But it was worse. He had to live to become deformed. He had to be fitted into a protective suit. He had to hear of his wife’s death, by his hand. He forever after filled his heart with hate and despair. There was nothing now to alleviate his loss. The loss changed him. “He’s more machine now, than man. Twisted…and evil.”
13. The Relinquished Idea
I couldn’t help but utilize the song played from my favorite scene in my favorite movie The Good Shepherd. The song is Silouans Song and it brings out the theme of that movie which to me is the loss of humanity. A man who has had an idea of how life is lived, and slowly and surely that idea is ripped from him until he is so heartless he burns a note from his deceased father without hesitation. He tangentially murders his son’s bride, he refuses to love his wife, he is friendless and completely alone. A man or woman is truly destroyed when even the idea they once had of their future is destroyed. Everyone who has ever grown up knows of the realities of life. They always seem to hit us like a freight train. I thought I would never give up those ideas I once held so close to myself.
14. Life Passes us By
The final song is The Last Man from the movie, The Fountain. I had two choices for the ending song, both in this movie. The other was a rhythmic but intense song of enlightenment, but I did not want that ending. I wanted this song, and I could not understand why. By all accounts, the last song should’ve been Death is the Road to Awe but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. There was something so deceiving in the idea of enlightenment at such an older age. Life, to me, ends in a whimper. Retirement, grandchildren, dry skin, brittle bones. Life fades, it doesn’t collapse. I wanted a feeling of slow decay, and slow realization that life is moving on without us. There will be years upon years, and we will not be there. Our legacy will not even be uttered. I will not be remembered as a writer or even as a teacher. I might for a generation or two, but hundreds of years will take its toll. There is a somber and terrible feeling of how fleeting life can be. And as depressing as that sounds I wanted it to end this way. I wanted to bring the listener up, slam them down, and leave them rebounding in free fall until the end.
I do apologize for such an explanation, but I wanted an answer to what you are listening to and why I chose what I did. I hope you enjoy something I had a lot of fun doing.
To those reading this in a note or on my blog, this is what I taped to every CD to explain it at the party. I'm sorry to those that don't get to hear these songs. Try using Groove Shark, or Playlist.com if you're really interested, but I'm posting this just to keep track of it.
But then I did.
Friday December 10th, I was invited to someone’s CD mix party. I knew the agenda right away. Everyone makes a mixed CD, brings enough copies for everyone, and everyone gets a copy. Not only would I receive some amazing music, but I would also be able to tell the creative story I had always wanted through music. It was time to write my signature on mixed CD stardom.
So first I had to establish a theme. With so much music, I assumed it would be a casual task: I was wrong. Despite the fact that so much music covers far less subjects, it was difficult to visualize what I wanted. I almost jokingly made my CD just In Rainbows by Radiohead because of my love for them.
But I consider myself not only a deep person, but I am also self aware of my own dark, depressing personality. I understood that I shouldn’t turn away from my strength, but struggle to improve it.
A theme popped first into my head: movie soundtracks. Yes of course. Here was something I could easily visualize, but also pull for it’s thematic elements I had already experienced. But then I needed to take it one step further. This group of soundtracks needed to have a story. And it not only needed to be universal, but it needed to be deep and enthralling. Finally I decided to combine everything: my dark style, my love for soundtracks, my attempt to create a story, and came up with the idea. I had a lot of work to do.
I wanted to create a story of youth, love, and loss. Not only are these all experienced by everyone, but they are some of the deepest and tragic experiences of our lives. Combine this with movie soundtracks, and combine it with a tragic ending, and magic was being made, at least I hoped. The work however, remained on the computer.
1. Youth
I wanted to make the beginning seem energetic and idealistic, but also sweet, reassuring, and charming. I was reluctant to use lyrical songs, because I wanted a pure, but minimalist approach to allow the listener to immerse themselves in the experience. So how to start the CD? I knew eventually that everything begins with either a literal or metaphorical dance. And what better way to describe youth and a beginning with a waltz. The first song, Bethena, is from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and is played throughout the movie. Right off the bat I wanted my listener to know that this song would foreshadow something doomed, but also convey a beautiful feeling of energy. There is a glory in the notes that you hear from the waltz, and it’s young, and it’s exciting. The musicals, the football games, the prom, and the idea of a utopia. It is these feelings that make senior year of high school so grand and exciting. There is so much that has been crossed, but so much more to see. I picture a beautiful woman, and a charming man, under soft floodlights, the piano softly playing. There’s the woman, in Victorian, with the man in a suit, but a suit that shows off his thin tall legs. The line runs perfectly as he one-two-threes with her across a limitless plane of possibility.
But there is a darkness to it, make no mistake about that. With change, comes the good and the bad. It is part of growing up, and now you find yourself alone, without anyone to call your own. But you’re optimistic, even after the sobs in the bed.
2. Idealistic Love
The next song I needed should not only have been still idealistic in love as an emotion, but also convey some somber feeling of the past, and display hope of the future. I found that song in As Time Goes By from the classic Casablanca. The movie is so iconic of western love and in the movie Humphrey Bogart cannot be with the woman she loves, because of the external pressures that force a higher cause. In the song, it conveys the idea of love from a classic romance movie that is hailed as the greatest ever made. It also applies the thought of somber feeling from the plot of the movie, and it also nails the idea of love as eternal. As time goes by, you will find love again. “A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh. The fundamental things apply, as time goes by.”
3. Optimistic Enlightenment
I needed a hurtful, almost unabashed, opaque look at love. It needed to be pure and desired truly. It needed to be simple, but astounding. I continued the idea of love with I Found a Reason straight from V’s jukebox in V for Vendetta. Anyone who’s seen the movie knows that when they dance to it, there’s a complete mental and emotional blockade of the outside world and the anticipation that comes with the next scenes. Eve wants the man, and not the idea. The idea has become so humanized that it hurts for her to accept that V is part of a world that must end that night. And although Eve understands the cost, she is still traumatized and broken down with the death of her man, but the eternity of his idea lives on.
4. A Spark
At long last it was time to commit. The song needed to instigate a love that was personified. It would present the listener with the love of their life. Although it would not continue fully in the song, it would at least establish a human counterpart that is recognizable, and highly desirable. A Whisper of a Thrill from the movie Meet Joe Black was the answer. Anthony Hopkins is addressing to her daughter the sensual escape that love provides. It’s one of the best monologues in film in my opinion, and it represents a take on love that is hard to find anymore. The daughter soon after encounters Brad Pitt, who is very desirable, but his character feels so attainable. Not a bad thing at all, because Pitt’s character does it with a down to earth feeling that makes him nearly perfect. There is the spark, and it’s up to us to fly towards it.
5. Realization
He or she is the ideal. They are what you have aspired to walk with since those years on the dance floor. I needed a favorite of mine, something so iconic and memorable that it capitalized on the glory of loving someone who truly loved you back. A song that said, “I will never let you go.” Transformation from Beauty and the Beast easily fit the bill. Beast was dying, and Belle was cradling the last inch of his life in her arms. At first, there is a feeling that it is too late, and all hope for both of them is lost. But as soon as the lowest point is reached, we are brought with a huge revival and joy that all is well. The song and movie fit. I have always considered Beauty and the Beast my favorite Disney movie, and from start to finish, this song is the theme of the movie. They are yours, and you are theirs, and once again, there is a dance. Only this time, they are there for good.
6. Ups and Downs
No marriage is easy, and I wanted to provide a sweeping soothing song, but it also needed to feel extremely emotional. It needed a lot of movement to reflect the difficulties of marriage. But at the same time, marriage can be sweet and endearing. Cavalliera Ru from Raging Bull was a less known, but satisfactory response. Raging Bull for those who don’t know was a 1980 movie about boxing. Any and every marriage at one time or another is a boxing match, but I did not want that to be the primary focus. This song has so much emotion in it. I wanted those large high notes and contrasting low notes to exaggerate the “ups and downs” of marriage. The bookends of the song provide a sweet melody however, that continues to reassure us that “love conquers all.”
7. Tragic Loss
Anyone who has seen Up knows why I used Married Life as the turning point of the CD. I needed a way to convey to the listener that the road stopped abruptly. Car accidents, disease, war, crime, are all things that exist and affect us in terrible ways. I wanted to establish an artificial ending to a marriage that was not quite complete. And while the couple in Up had a finished scrapbook, there was very little there for this story. It ended harshly, and it ended horribly. It does happen, and it happens often.
8. Why does She have to Die?
In my movie favorites, the loss that is most memorable to me is accompanied with the song Why Does She Have to Die? in Finding Neverland. Everybody asks why. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why are we here? Why did she have to die? And the most truthful answer is Johnny Depp’s “I don’t know.” Kate Winslet’s character, a beautiful vibrant woman was cut down by disease despite the fact that everyone adored her and loved her deeply. Peter is left with confusion as this is his other parent, leaving him and the other Davies’ alone. And once again, although the human is lost, the idea is still there. “She is on every page of your imagination.”
9. Comatose
You can’t work, you can’t sleep, and you can’t eat. The indention on the other side of your bed is no longer there. The calendar has no markings. The refrigerator lacks small love notes magnetized to itself. The nights are long, and the days repeat themselves. You feel nothing. Memories (Someone We’ll Never Know) from the movie Moon with Sam Rockwell is a bit of a stretch, but I think its dissonance and resonance create space. The echo and somber notes create a giant world that fills a speck that is us. But it does very little else with the space. It merely places us there to experience the empty nothing of highly regrettable loss.
10. Condolences
Funeral arrangements. Flowers. Black. You wish there was more you could do, but there would have never been enough. For now, Song for Bob from The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is the song that provides a yearning for the lost. It stretches emotion but it’s western style gives it a rural alienating feeling. The repetition of the melody is an attempt to bring them back, failing each time. I wanted this to be an official “beginning of the end” segment of the CD. I wanted the listener to understand that there was no going back, and you cannot change the past.
11. Weight
Gortoz a Ran from Blackhawk Down provided a weight to loss that I fail to write in words. Comrades lost in battle is always a feeling that only they can understand. Those men will always be heroes, but it still does not take away from the heaviness that we all feel from lost men and women. A foreign language really provided a misunderstanding and hopeless tone that I really liked and respected.
12. Anger
Nothing. And it’s killing you. The Immolation Scene from Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is horrifying to listen to and melancholy to say the least. I wanted a frustrating feeling of despair and loss. I wanted broken wine glasses and stained walls from an all out destruction of will and hope. The burning alive and suffering of Anakin Skywalker leaves a chilling feeling down your spine. Everything that Anakin fought for, everything he thought he stood for was ripped from him and destroyed that day. And he burned for it. His loss of humanity nearly cost him his life. But it was worse. He had to live to become deformed. He had to be fitted into a protective suit. He had to hear of his wife’s death, by his hand. He forever after filled his heart with hate and despair. There was nothing now to alleviate his loss. The loss changed him. “He’s more machine now, than man. Twisted…and evil.”
13. The Relinquished Idea
I couldn’t help but utilize the song played from my favorite scene in my favorite movie The Good Shepherd. The song is Silouans Song and it brings out the theme of that movie which to me is the loss of humanity. A man who has had an idea of how life is lived, and slowly and surely that idea is ripped from him until he is so heartless he burns a note from his deceased father without hesitation. He tangentially murders his son’s bride, he refuses to love his wife, he is friendless and completely alone. A man or woman is truly destroyed when even the idea they once had of their future is destroyed. Everyone who has ever grown up knows of the realities of life. They always seem to hit us like a freight train. I thought I would never give up those ideas I once held so close to myself.
14. Life Passes us By
The final song is The Last Man from the movie, The Fountain. I had two choices for the ending song, both in this movie. The other was a rhythmic but intense song of enlightenment, but I did not want that ending. I wanted this song, and I could not understand why. By all accounts, the last song should’ve been Death is the Road to Awe but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. There was something so deceiving in the idea of enlightenment at such an older age. Life, to me, ends in a whimper. Retirement, grandchildren, dry skin, brittle bones. Life fades, it doesn’t collapse. I wanted a feeling of slow decay, and slow realization that life is moving on without us. There will be years upon years, and we will not be there. Our legacy will not even be uttered. I will not be remembered as a writer or even as a teacher. I might for a generation or two, but hundreds of years will take its toll. There is a somber and terrible feeling of how fleeting life can be. And as depressing as that sounds I wanted it to end this way. I wanted to bring the listener up, slam them down, and leave them rebounding in free fall until the end.
I do apologize for such an explanation, but I wanted an answer to what you are listening to and why I chose what I did. I hope you enjoy something I had a lot of fun doing.
To those reading this in a note or on my blog, this is what I taped to every CD to explain it at the party. I'm sorry to those that don't get to hear these songs. Try using Groove Shark, or Playlist.com if you're really interested, but I'm posting this just to keep track of it.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Death by Pigskin
I went running for the first time in half a year. Once around the university, as usual. And as always, it destroyed me. I always come crashing in, my lungs like a jet turbine, spitting and heaving and whining. But while I was running, Thanksgiving break came flooding in, and I was able to process the mess of situations with people I had not seen in a long time. I have always been enamored by the idea of a double life, because I believe we all live one, and in these double lives we are sometimes forced to like things we would rather have no part in. A great example of this is my relationship with football.
Chuck Klosterman is right when he says that “football does not try to sell anything except itself” in his book Eating the Dinosaur. While every other sport sells ideas, football merely presents the brutality of combat in a coliseum, which it is. Baseball, Chuck says, sells the sport of the American legend, while basketball sells itself as the urban grunge underground sport. Soccer is also in this category, with its focus in America as being underground as well. But football is the sport of football. “Are you ready for some football?” Rock music clanging in sync with pads striking each other in a battle worthy of the ancients. Thousands of fans cheering for more violent destruction of young men’s bodies. Quarterbacks hurling the pigskin to new lengths and receivers throwing themselves into the abyss with hopes of connecting. With all these things considered, in a poetic exciting way, why don’t I like football?
I understand and respect football. I really do. I played from age seven to freshman year of high school. I understand the basics, and I understand the drive. I was never good at football, but I always acknowledged and sometimes had just a taste, of what it would take to climb to the heights of the better players of any age. I respect what football does for us as consumers, especially with TV’s in every room. Football presents itself as a universal code, especially to men. Sometimes it’s awkward when women talk about football, but to some it’s flattering and kind of hot. A girl like that obviously knows the key to a man’s heart. But for men, it’s almost a class prerequisite in order to take the “adult male in society” class. Every man should have a firm understanding of football by my age, because it represents the culmination of everything men want out of life. Why even talk about this? Everyone knows how big football season is, and everyone doesn’t need a second helping, but I think to point out some aspects of this will help us to understand who we are and where we come from, and also where we are going.
Let’s start with the basics: football is the most violent large medium sport available. Of course you could compete with Rugby, but it’s not like anyone’s going to talk thoroughly about Rugby unless you play it. Football grinds bones and spits out mush. It ruins many athletes’ lives later through injuries. Football, resultantly, embraces technological advances, unlike other sports. The goal of football is much like war: to move up the field by force, and plant the ball in the end zone. “War is a business of positions” said Napoleon Bonaparte, and he was right about football. And for generations that missed wars, you talk about football, because it’s the closest thing that can be commercially spat at us day in and day out. Ironically while we love to talk about comradery in war, football embraces individual stars. I know of no sport that should focus on a team collaborative effort more than football. You think Peyton Manning single handedly runs that offense? No, he owes much more to his lineman who provide him with the time in the pocket. But because of the belief in the individual, we love heroes, and kids love heroes, and that’s how it’s always been.
This became extremely apparent when my 8 year old cousin and I were watching The Mummy Returns and out of the blue he mentions “Tracy Mcgrady.” Baffled, I look at the TV screen. No one in the Mummy is named Tracy. I finally asked him, “Who is Tracy Mcgrady?” He turns to me and says, “He’s on the Detroit Pistons.” I look down and think of myself as an idiot. I only know that it’s basketball, because otherwise it would be the Detroit Lions, and few people care about baseball enough to know the Detroit Tigers. But I’m really not. My cousin worships sports, and he does it because like George Clooney says in Up in the Air, “Because they follow their dreams.”
Even if you don’t own any form of modern television programming agreement, you can hook up an antenna and watch football. Granted your selection will be smaller, but you’ll be consuming the sport like everyone else. But when you do have the opportunity to have cable or satellite, the choices are expanded ten fold. Then after that you’ve got the final slot of an addiction. Now it’s not just NFL, it’s also college, and you can even catch some high school games. This means that you could presumably track an athlete’s career anywhere from 4 years, to 8 years, to 15 years! Do you realize what kind of time commitment that is? But in perspective, this is not a bad thing to the average male. In fact, it’s a good thing, and it’s easier to explain with another medium that will never be as popular: Video Games.
On November 4th 2010, Microsoft released their new installment for theXbox 360 , the Kinect. The premise and the goal behind it are very easy to see: grab the consumers from Wii by using an improved version of motion controls. Kinect uses a new 3-dimensional camera system to retrieve your body dynamics and movements and implement them into the game, presenting a 1:1 relationship with the game. You, in fact, are now the game. You don’t need a controller, wires, equipment. All you need is your body and space of course. And while this may seem like a step forward in video gaming history, it represents everything I hate about the video game industry sometimes.
Like when the movie industry makes movies like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen some attempts at money grabbing are so obvious that it destroys any legitimacy of the creation. Kinect presents several problems for Microsoft rather than solutions. First off Microsoft obviously has no idea who their audience is. Either that or they are so stunned by theWii demographic that they are willing to trade their current fans for others. This is unsettling and scary for people like me. I’m kind of a video game connoisseur.
I take pride in knowing a wide range about video games. I know what makesDonkey Kong thrilling on arcade. I know what was so incredible about Shadow of the Colossus (the game Adam Sandler played in Reign Over Me). I understand the importance of Halo in the rise of console shooters. I could write a ten page essay just discussing the leap in story-telling because of the work Bioware provides in all their videogames. Indeed Bioware right now is the AMC of the video game industry, and they’re firing on all cylinders.
But anyway, when Microsoft is willing to throw away people like me for the family audience, it bothers me. Because that means an end to great games likeMass Effect 2, and Bioshock because families cannot possibly play this game on the Kinect. Kinect presents great opportunities for games, but I don’t think it will be fully realized. Mainly this is because of the release titles being dumb kid shit like Kinectimals which is like a “Giga-Pet” that you can’t take with you. Just Dance 2 and Ubisoft’s workout game both look cool, but it’s not worth shelling out $150 to purchase the hardware, then $60 more to purchase the actual game. That’s like 32 small pizzas, and in an over 21 estimate, approximately 175 bottles of beer.
Kinect really does present the no win scenario for people like me. Suppose Kinect is amazing, and it explodes with popularity. All that means is we are going to get more crappy, kiddy games that don’t feature a great story, and don’t allow for good atmosphere or immersion, because how can I immerse myself in something that is so hard to use? Seriously, you thoughtWii was going to be amazing, until you realized how crappy that little sensor was below or above the TV. While this seems cool, it is no different. Suppose Kinect falls apart. No one buys it, and no one likes it. That’s a huge investment by Microsoft down the drain, along with lots of other gaming companies that attempted to sell a Kinect game. Video gaming is a risky business, and the reason why shooting games are everywhere is because they always outsell other genres. Gaming is one of the biggest places where you don’t want to take risks. The project is worthless if it doesn’t sell, and if reviews come out bad, then the game will most likely tank, because games are too expensive to try out. People do or do not buy videogames.
People who playXbox 360 are not children. Some are, but most are teenage to middle age men who love action games, role-playing games, and a good story, and online competition. Not only is it bad for business to release Kinect, but it is offensive to the fans who own the hardware and have stood by Microsoft since its first steps into the console world.
Now with everything I just said, if I were to pull this out anywhere in the social world, I would be shot down hard. Don’t give me some, “I would talk about it” because I’m never talking about one particular person. I’m talking about if we were in a group. In a new social setting when you are talking to strangers, there’s no finer way to break the ice than football. The blood of American men is injected with football, and here’s why: the more you know about football, the cooler you are. I’m not kidding. I could talk about Michael Vick’s change as a Quarterback since jail time. I could talk about how much of an idiot Vince Young is for text messaging “sorry” to his head coach. I could reference how many upsets by underdogs occurred over Thanksgiving break, and people would only love and reinforce me for it. Football presents a scholastic irony where even though it’s about a lot of muscle on the field, the people watching must know everything. Sports Center and ESPN show off so many damn statistics and analysis and news that you would think football is being played as much as baseball. All of my knowledge would just be regurgitated like everyone else from sports casters. That’s all anyone does. And all this goes back to high school when football was cooler than anything else. Dating the Quarterback was worthy of a party on the beach house and the players towered over everyone as they took the middle seats and lounged in the hallways. They always were assured of good grades, and always owned everyone. And nothing changes for years. If I were to talk aboutMass Effect ’s long time result in science fiction and how it preserves Star Wars and Star Trek culture, I would get thrown in the locker.
Football cannot be stopped. I mean it. Football cannot be stopped. If a sport sells itself, is popular by its own merits, and rewards those who delve into its nuances, how do you stop it? You can’t create another sport, ever. History is the most important aspect of a sport. The older you get, the more you know. I feel like I was born with a sport debt. So much football happened before me, I had to relearn everything. I had to learn about the Catholic king Roger Stauback and had to learn about John Elway leading the Broncos and completely missed the 1970s Miami Dolphin era of greatness. Maybe that’s why I like video games so much. The lack of a large memory requirement allows for a chance to jump onto a train in which I could easily know all the passengers is kind of flattering and thrilling at the same time. But instead, I like many other people must watch football, because there’s no reason not to like it.
So there I was, watching game after game, experiencing the brutal tackles with my father, commentating on the growing importance of the forward pass game, especially with the restrictions on cornerbacks these days. I’m next to him, drinking a beer, and I look at him. I look like him, I drink beer like him, I joke and talk like him. And I watch football like him. Are we so incapable of truly knowing each other that we must use some sort of sport to channel personality? No, maybe I should look at this in another perspective.
Football is a time machine.
And it doesn’t have all the crazy technical nuances and dangers of time travel. It is a simple tool that old and young can use to gather together and talk about and enjoy. And old timers can look back and see what was so great about their generation of players and mention it to the younger. The younger can create their own heroes, put them up, and say, “look what we’ve accomplished.” I can talk to my dad about the good old days of whoever, and he will nod and agree and we will laugh at hard hits, and we will yell at referees and we will always hate Aggies together.
Maybe football isn’t so bad.
Chuck Klosterman is right when he says that “football does not try to sell anything except itself” in his book Eating the Dinosaur. While every other sport sells ideas, football merely presents the brutality of combat in a coliseum, which it is. Baseball, Chuck says, sells the sport of the American legend, while basketball sells itself as the urban grunge underground sport. Soccer is also in this category, with its focus in America as being underground as well. But football is the sport of football. “Are you ready for some football?” Rock music clanging in sync with pads striking each other in a battle worthy of the ancients. Thousands of fans cheering for more violent destruction of young men’s bodies. Quarterbacks hurling the pigskin to new lengths and receivers throwing themselves into the abyss with hopes of connecting. With all these things considered, in a poetic exciting way, why don’t I like football?
I understand and respect football. I really do. I played from age seven to freshman year of high school. I understand the basics, and I understand the drive. I was never good at football, but I always acknowledged and sometimes had just a taste, of what it would take to climb to the heights of the better players of any age. I respect what football does for us as consumers, especially with TV’s in every room. Football presents itself as a universal code, especially to men. Sometimes it’s awkward when women talk about football, but to some it’s flattering and kind of hot. A girl like that obviously knows the key to a man’s heart. But for men, it’s almost a class prerequisite in order to take the “adult male in society” class. Every man should have a firm understanding of football by my age, because it represents the culmination of everything men want out of life. Why even talk about this? Everyone knows how big football season is, and everyone doesn’t need a second helping, but I think to point out some aspects of this will help us to understand who we are and where we come from, and also where we are going.
Let’s start with the basics: football is the most violent large medium sport available. Of course you could compete with Rugby, but it’s not like anyone’s going to talk thoroughly about Rugby unless you play it. Football grinds bones and spits out mush. It ruins many athletes’ lives later through injuries. Football, resultantly, embraces technological advances, unlike other sports. The goal of football is much like war: to move up the field by force, and plant the ball in the end zone. “War is a business of positions” said Napoleon Bonaparte, and he was right about football. And for generations that missed wars, you talk about football, because it’s the closest thing that can be commercially spat at us day in and day out. Ironically while we love to talk about comradery in war, football embraces individual stars. I know of no sport that should focus on a team collaborative effort more than football. You think Peyton Manning single handedly runs that offense? No, he owes much more to his lineman who provide him with the time in the pocket. But because of the belief in the individual, we love heroes, and kids love heroes, and that’s how it’s always been.
This became extremely apparent when my 8 year old cousin and I were watching The Mummy Returns and out of the blue he mentions “Tracy Mcgrady.” Baffled, I look at the TV screen. No one in the Mummy is named Tracy. I finally asked him, “Who is Tracy Mcgrady?” He turns to me and says, “He’s on the Detroit Pistons.” I look down and think of myself as an idiot. I only know that it’s basketball, because otherwise it would be the Detroit Lions, and few people care about baseball enough to know the Detroit Tigers. But I’m really not. My cousin worships sports, and he does it because like George Clooney says in Up in the Air, “Because they follow their dreams.”
Even if you don’t own any form of modern television programming agreement, you can hook up an antenna and watch football. Granted your selection will be smaller, but you’ll be consuming the sport like everyone else. But when you do have the opportunity to have cable or satellite, the choices are expanded ten fold. Then after that you’ve got the final slot of an addiction. Now it’s not just NFL, it’s also college, and you can even catch some high school games. This means that you could presumably track an athlete’s career anywhere from 4 years, to 8 years, to 15 years! Do you realize what kind of time commitment that is? But in perspective, this is not a bad thing to the average male. In fact, it’s a good thing, and it’s easier to explain with another medium that will never be as popular: Video Games.
On November 4th 2010, Microsoft released their new installment for the
Like when the movie industry makes movies like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen some attempts at money grabbing are so obvious that it destroys any legitimacy of the creation. Kinect presents several problems for Microsoft rather than solutions. First off Microsoft obviously has no idea who their audience is. Either that or they are so stunned by the
I take pride in knowing a wide range about video games. I know what makes
But anyway, when Microsoft is willing to throw away people like me for the family audience, it bothers me. Because that means an end to great games like
Kinect really does present the no win scenario for people like me. Suppose Kinect is amazing, and it explodes with popularity. All that means is we are going to get more crappy, kiddy games that don’t feature a great story, and don’t allow for good atmosphere or immersion, because how can I immerse myself in something that is so hard to use? Seriously, you thought
People who play
Now with everything I just said, if I were to pull this out anywhere in the social world, I would be shot down hard. Don’t give me some, “I would talk about it” because I’m never talking about one particular person. I’m talking about if we were in a group. In a new social setting when you are talking to strangers, there’s no finer way to break the ice than football. The blood of American men is injected with football, and here’s why: the more you know about football, the cooler you are. I’m not kidding. I could talk about Michael Vick’s change as a Quarterback since jail time. I could talk about how much of an idiot Vince Young is for text messaging “sorry” to his head coach. I could reference how many upsets by underdogs occurred over Thanksgiving break, and people would only love and reinforce me for it. Football presents a scholastic irony where even though it’s about a lot of muscle on the field, the people watching must know everything. Sports Center and ESPN show off so many damn statistics and analysis and news that you would think football is being played as much as baseball. All of my knowledge would just be regurgitated like everyone else from sports casters. That’s all anyone does. And all this goes back to high school when football was cooler than anything else. Dating the Quarterback was worthy of a party on the beach house and the players towered over everyone as they took the middle seats and lounged in the hallways. They always were assured of good grades, and always owned everyone. And nothing changes for years. If I were to talk about
Football cannot be stopped. I mean it. Football cannot be stopped. If a sport sells itself, is popular by its own merits, and rewards those who delve into its nuances, how do you stop it? You can’t create another sport, ever. History is the most important aspect of a sport. The older you get, the more you know. I feel like I was born with a sport debt. So much football happened before me, I had to relearn everything. I had to learn about the Catholic king Roger Stauback and had to learn about John Elway leading the Broncos and completely missed the 1970s Miami Dolphin era of greatness. Maybe that’s why I like video games so much. The lack of a large memory requirement allows for a chance to jump onto a train in which I could easily know all the passengers is kind of flattering and thrilling at the same time. But instead, I like many other people must watch football, because there’s no reason not to like it.
So there I was, watching game after game, experiencing the brutal tackles with my father, commentating on the growing importance of the forward pass game, especially with the restrictions on cornerbacks these days. I’m next to him, drinking a beer, and I look at him. I look like him, I drink beer like him, I joke and talk like him. And I watch football like him. Are we so incapable of truly knowing each other that we must use some sort of sport to channel personality? No, maybe I should look at this in another perspective.
Football is a time machine.
And it doesn’t have all the crazy technical nuances and dangers of time travel. It is a simple tool that old and young can use to gather together and talk about and enjoy. And old timers can look back and see what was so great about their generation of players and mention it to the younger. The younger can create their own heroes, put them up, and say, “look what we’ve accomplished.” I can talk to my dad about the good old days of whoever, and he will nod and agree and we will laugh at hard hits, and we will yell at referees and we will always hate Aggies together.
Maybe football isn’t so bad.
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