Episode 24, how do I love thee?
May 14, 2004
Far be it from me to deprive you of a new episode while I finish up this week’s essay to go with it. Check back by noon as I should have my thoughts together by then.
It’s an interesting little essay I think I’ll call :
Why most of Gizmodo’s daily outpouring of various techological marvels don’t capture my imagination in the same way, I’m not entirely sure, but there’s the promise of a direct personal connection with technology in robotics not seen outisde of lodging a microchip directly into your brain. I blame Star Wars for that… in fact the first book on robotics I ever bought was a 0.25 examination of our “automated friends” narrated by the elder statesman himself.
It’s that “humanization” of robotics that makes it so easy to imagine them doing wrong, programmed by some mad scientiest type to conquor the known Universe. It’s easy for people to understand how Robots could directly hurt them, what with the ”pushing down the stairs” and all. It’s less easy to get people concerned about what evil intent their toaster, or banking service, or automatic vote-counting machine may hold in it’s cold electronic innards.
Which brings me to today’s thrust - one of the reasons that the miraculous advances we’re making in technology do need to be scrutinized ad-nauseum is humanity, as a whole, has a very poor track record for abusing new technologies in the most depraved ways possible.
Jane Pinckard is one of the most literate writers and futurists about the societal impact of video games that I am aware of. She has written one of the defining essays of the year about genderplay in electronic entertainment and is a frequent speaker on her findings. Game Girl Advance, the site she founded, is one of the most erudite repositories of critical thought on the development of entertainment media on the Internet, and should be required reading for anyone who wants to see the 8-bit pastime develop into a truly mainstream media. Yet if you were to survey the floor at this years E3 (the yearly Mecca for all things “gamer”) I would suspect she would instead be almost solely recognized as the person who wrote the article about her own very personal connection to sex in video-games. Now it’s easy to brush this off as a story ready-made for the Internet’s rabid sound-bite devouring maw, frankly it covers the entire “Good Internet Story” meme-checklist: uniqueness (check), voyeurism (check), geek culture (check), and sex (check). But there is a greater truth at play, that when provided with new electronic entertainments mankind’s first instinct is usually to abuse that technology horribly, otherwise normal individuals seemingly dancing at the command of some kind of dark id-monster lurking in us all.
Case in point, ATT Labs Research has an amazing interactive multi-lingual demo of their formidable text to speech software. You type in blocks of text which are then spit out as synthesized .wav files in various crisp voices. It took your loyal DED creative team less a few minutes before we were cranking out dirty limericks, and long winded curses that would make Spider Jerusalem blush.
Think back to playing with toys as a child especially, heaven forbid “girls” dolls. How long before you got tired driving for groceries and waiting for Ken to come home from work and started putting Barbie in compromising situations?
How many of the future genius programmers of the future are sitting in their parents basement cranking out the next Sasser, soBig, or MyDoom relatively confident in their anonymity?
How many locker-room cell phone photographs sit in hidden directories on hard drives?
How much pornography clogs the bandwidth of the Internet each day? Terabytes? Petabytes?
Frankly, it’s important to be concerned about the technology that we adopt because we are giving it more and more control over vital societal functions. Even New Yorkers (ever the yardstick for jaded detachment) were surprised recently to learn that majority of traffic control buttons in their fair city had been disconnected since the 1980s , all traffic control long since turned over to automated systems.
In this light of exponentially increasing technological adoption the old concept of “black box” technology (that one just has to assume is working fairly) is completely unacceptable. The potential for misuse (and potential rewards for misusing) said systems increase daily. What if some programmer innocently rigged the traffic system to get to home from work faster each day? What someone purposely coded the system to give faster emergency vehicle response times to affluent areas? What if someone stuck in an Ambulance in traffic died because of it? One of the real benefits of the Open Source Software movement is that publicly accessible source code is publicly auditable source code. While this can be a tough concept to grasp (that an “open book” will lead to software that is considerably more secure in the long run) one only has to do a cursory investigation comparing DieBold, Election Systems and Software, and say Open-Vote to get a pretty good immediate impression on what the very tangibles benefits of Open Source Software.
So while my ongoing infatuation with personal robotics may seem quaint compared with say, activating SkyNet, there are technological battles being fought right now which will determine the accountability required of systems that will ultimately control important aspects of your everyday life. That’s why it’s important that each of us try to frame the short term gimmicks and fads of new technology (and the press-release fueled fluff and feature obsession of much of “technology journalism”) in the larger context of addressing the true transparency, accountability, and electronic liberty issues that I have no doubt will ultimately be as to our generation as civil rights reform were to the generation before us - the battleground that will define the type of civilization we share in the years to come. And if it helps keep my floor clean at the same time, all the better.
“Dead End Days” Shoot Haiku Bonanza
May 13, 2004
One of the goals of these journals was always to reflect on the creative process itself. Shane often discusses the brass tacks of physical production (the yin to Jay’s conceptual creative yang). Matt waxes nostalgic about the “great” works that have inspired and are the standards by which all film is measured. Rob occasionally posts about a specific facet of production, separate from the process as a whole. It occurred to me as we went into our May monthly shoot that one perspective that was missing from these journals was conveying the rote drudgery of the act of “filming” itself. Far from being a star-studded thrill-a-minute ride, anyone with even a passing knowledge of the medium, knows that 99.99% of a shoot is really dull. Unpack equipment. Move equipment. Block. Move equipment. Shoot. Move equipment. Shoot. Move equipment. Shoot. Move equipment. Pack equipment. Rinse. Repeat. In order to capture the moment to moment reality of life on a “Dead End Days” shoot, I tasked the cast and crew with recording the “in between” moments of the shoot with the classic Zen form of expression - the Haiku. 17 syllable postcards into our fabulously exciting existence, I give you the:
Poor little Jenny,
trying to eat a bagel.
Film crew’s in the way.8:30 am
Where’s Matt and Robin?
Need them to start the filming.
Their car is broken.9:30 am
Producer works out.
Doesn’t really know how though.
Pulled rotator cuff.10:00 am
The muffins of death,
with plastic and rock filling.
Beware your first bite.10:01 am
“The” in a Haiku.
Stupid-cheap and/o lame cop-out?
Shane tells Brad “Get Bent.”11:00 am
Driving to Brantford.
Where are our important props?
They’re in Toronto.12:30 pm
Silence on the set.
Tension mounts, primed potential.
Bugs fly in Matt’s ear.3:00 pm
Craft table break-time.
Pressing topic of the day:
White Supremacy.5:00 pm
Set in a warm room,
a slow, verbose, dialogue;
The cast and crew doze.11:00 pm
The weekend is done.
Dead End Days is in the can.
Matts’ car will not start.
probably not branch into poetry as a viable career alternative any time soon.
Please Stand By…
May 12, 2004
Okay I wasn’t sure anyone actually read the production journals until I got flooded with “where’s the journal this week” e-mails. As this weeks “impossible to recreate” journal was scribbled in a notebook and part of a napkin, I can’t type it in until I’ve found the notebook… and napkin. Having narrowed the search down to a couple of equipment boxes it will hopefully be up by late tonight. I probably could have found it last night if I had looked harder… but… you know… hockey.
Enter, the Numbskull
May 7, 2004
Despite whatever foul lies Matthew tells you in this space, Rocket Ace Moving Pictures HQ is firmly gripped with playoff fever, especially as the team of choice for Firefox and myself are, against all reasonable expectation, still in the race. This is a particularly big deal, as for us ex-pat Calgarians, admiting that you have been a life-long Flames fan is often received by others like an admission that you have pleurisy. Unfortunately the month long string of West-coast games is starting to take its toll on my already fragile psyche… when you spend as many late hours as we do, carefully whittling new episodes (from a piece of birch, a soda can, and some good intentions) even just a few extra lost hours of sleep on top can be dramatic. When you keep desperately chugging another tasty caffinated beverage for the strength to keep your eyelids open for yet another second overtime… that’s something else entirely.
This is just a fancy way of saying we’re pretty tired - but for you fine folk? A sleepless year or two is totally worth it.
Blah blah, forums, blah blah t-shirts, blah blah blah see you on Tuesday for a nifty production journal that I’m quite looking forward to sharing with you.
May the fourth be with you.
May 4, 2004
When Star Wars: Episode I was released into theatres, and you couldn’t speak but for the collective sigh of disappointment, I remember certain people/critics/radio disc jockeys defending the prequel on the basis that the original films were nothing but special effects spectacles. The extension of this argument – parroted by none other than Frank Oz himself, who should have known better – was that the reason nobody seemed to like the film was that our collective expectations were just too high. There was no way for this film to live up to the hype, they lamented, casually making it our fault, not theirs.
Now without delving too deep into just how asinine and offensive that assertion is – that we’re essentially too stupid to differentiate between good and bad movies given how heightened a frenzy surrounds them (not that they had anything to do with the hype, heavens no!) – does anyone love the original Star Wars films on the merits of special effects alone? Now I may personally prefer puppets to computer programs, and ragged, beat-up X-Wings to computer programs, and a guy in a wookie suit to He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named (another computer program), but I’ve never spoken with a single person who loves the original trilogy because the Death Star blew up real good, or the spaceships were neat, or the lightsabers were…okay, I’ll give you the lightsabers. Retrospective Star Wars analysis has become something of a cottage industry (on top of the well-entrenched and infinitely lucrative Star Wars book/video game/toy industry), which strikes me as ever more proof of their impact on successive generations – a resonance not confined to gender/class categories – and indicative that there must be something more to these films than special effects.
Like, say, the story.
There have been many a groundbreaking special effects fiesta that will have long been forgotten (along with, and I’d bet money on this, this new trilogy of Star Wars prequels) as our children and their children discover and rediscover the story George Lucas told (or, more accurately, re-told) before he became a reclusive, delusional megalomaniac. Like oral folk and fairy tales told for generations, then committed to paper and told for generations more, Star Wars is a simple story with a relevant theme: Power Corrupts. The Original Trilogy was partly a response to draconian Nixon incentives. The prequels are a response to…well…suffering a higher tax bracket, I guess.
In The Truth About Stories, Thomas King quotes Nigerian storyteller Ben Okri: “In a fractured age, when cynicism is god, here is a possible heresy: we live by stories, we also live in them. One way or another we are living the stories planted in us early or along the way, or we are also living the stories we planted – knowingly or unknowingly – in ourselves. We live stories that either give our lives meaning or negate it with meaninglessness.”
Age of cynicism indeed. How easily I find myself angry these days. Angry at the blatant hypocrisy, the greed, the out and out lies, but mostly at how well it seems to be working; poorly orchestrated, but effective nonetheless. And there’s a niggling sense of betrayal – that the grownups lied to us. That we grew up into and will inherit a world that is not good, not righteous, not truthful. That everything they taught us, everything we know is wrong, including the stories they told. If we can’t believe and live in those stories, then where can we live?
The Dark Side?
For whatever stock one can put in polls, I read recently that sixty-one percent of Americans believe that Weapons of Mass Destruction were found in Iraq. This is not a contentious or debatable issue, it’s plain untrue. Yet a majority of the population of this most powerful, modern, and wealthy nation believe it to be true. Sixty-one percent. The age of information. Astounding.
The filmmakers behind The Corporation use DSM-IV diagnostic criteria (the standard mental-illness diagnostic manual of the American Psychiatric Association) to characterize corporations as active psychopaths. In Errol Morris’ Academy-Award winning documentary The Fog of War, Robert MacNamara claims that a Cuban-American nuclear war was prevented through choosing compassion over aggression (could we dare to expect such compassion from Bush’s cabal?). The Pentagon (the Pentagon!) released a report naming global warming as the most pressing concern facing human civilization. In book after book after book (Al Franken’s Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them and Chris Hedges’ War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning among my personal favourites), a litany of scholars, entertainers, and ex-administration officials stand alongside senators, diplomats, and journalists to decry the treacherous path their country has taken. And we’re running out of oil.
Time to get down to brass tacks, yes? Public discourse and debate is at an all time premium, right? Human inventiveness and ingenuity ahoy!
Heather Mallick, a columnist for The Globe and Mail, recently appeared on Fox News stalwart The O’Reilly Factor. “Mr. O’Reilly is not a smart man,” she writes, “he’s like one of those old guys you see on the street ringing a bell and shouting about eternal damnation… You know the type. They let wasps nest in their hair so they can lure weasels, trap ‘em and eat ‘em slow over the summer… It was like talking to a manic child who had eaten 800 cherry Pop Tarts for breakfast. He kept interrupting, so that no point could be made that could win a reply, much less a reasoned response.”
Who among us does not see shades of the Empire loose in the world today? See Darth Vader addressing the nation on the nightly news? Feel that same creeping dread and hopelessness the Rebel Alliance must have felt when flying off to fight the Death Star? (Though they put on a good face, didn’t they? Good old Wedge.)
The screening of The Corporation I attended, was followed by a Q & A. A guy up front asked what he was supposed to do now. I knew exactly how he felt – helpless, so much information to absorb, to process; so depressing, overwhelming – but I knew the answer. And the answer was that he’s got to figure it out for himself. We all do.
This isn’t a call to arms, merely a passing along of information. And don’t let it get you down: to some extent, things have always been thus. Which is why it’s so important to keep your ear to the ground. Keep well informed. Think critically. Talk about what you see. Turn it into a story people will pay attention to. Keep those stories in circulation. The world is a story, but you have to tell it.
King says, “We wrote knowing that none of the stories we told would change the world. But we wrote in the hope that they would… The truth about stories is that’s all that we are.”
May the force be with you.
[Anyone who has spoken to JRo or I for more than five minutes probably gathers that there's many things we don't always see eye to eye on. Regardless of the minutia of things we bicker about, it's actually interesting when you look at the things that we are in complete 100% agreement on. Jay, myself, and Eddie Izzard all firmly believe in the concept that "Corporations don't have to be these huge sort of raping / pillaging things" - just by different avenues. While Jay (rightly) feels that corporations need to be held to higher standards of global citizenship, I have long come at the conclusion from the polar opposite position coordinate of looking at what corporations need to do to increase investor returns. Clearly the current system of trying to generate consistantly increasing short term returns is critically flawed (I'm sure it has nothing to do with an entire generation that has statistically had an expensive lifestyle, comparatively little savings, and is looking for unrealistic stock market returns to fund it's impending retirement). This is all just preamble for what I wanted to point out, that with Google's long awaited IPO this week many are noticing the very creative dual-class share structure the Google management team is bringing in to shield management from short-term shareholder interference. I am firmly a believer that long term goals and innovative focusing on narrow core competencies is a win-win situation as it will lead both to corporate citizens that behave less like a dozen ADD-riddled monsters duct-taped together, and ultimately increase shareholder revenue by blending the advantages of private management with the economic advantages of public ownership. Whether it pays off for Google specifically remains to be seen, but I think it is a very positive sign that new companies are beginning to recognize that a policy of massive consumption of disparate monoliths leading to the creation of a bloated stagnant obesity that has to cannibalize itself to meet quarterly projections at any and all expense has not proven to be a winning business strategy. - Brad]
The return of Sam and Bridget
April 30, 2004
First up Fat Phill’s at 245 Marlee in North York. Learn it. Live it. Love it. Old school hamburger joint through and through, they really helped us out of a tight spot… plus they fed us when we were all really hungry. In this day an age you can count the good fast burger joints with “Burger and Beer” specials on one hand so make sure you jot down the address, in case… I don’t know, there’s an emergency or something.
Back when “Dead End Days” was but a gleam in the eye of it’s co-creators, I spent many an evening thinking of interesting “one-off” episodes we might be able to do throughout the run. In the beginning you see, “Days” was a more loosely defined storyline so I envisioned the need for padding to fill out the run. I thought it might be interesting to do one episode as a music video, or a television commercial, or a news report… maybe a “behind the scenes” filler episode outside of the regular continuity - kind of like a low rent “shirt guy Dom, but without the stick figures. In actual practice we ended up with so many great stories populating the “deadiverse” that a shoehorn and a team of burley men skilled at cramming things into smaller things will be required to even touch on the basest elements of what we came up with before our meager year-long project runs it’s course. Such is the ways of life. Sun rise. Sun set. Frankly, in retrospect, most of my idle musings were lame - but one has stuck with me. For whatever reason, I thought it would be brilliantly funny to do a live-action version of one of the old “Hostess Fruit Pie” ads from the comic books of the mid-80s… you know the one, some lame third rate villains plans for mischief thwarted by a timely appearance by a D.C. or Marvel mainstay, and a carefully tossed Twinkie. It was such a surreal line of advertising that, even as small children, we could see the ridiculousness inherent in the sales pitch. I’m pretty sure that it was thanks to a Hostess snowball, or Cherry pie I got my first dawning inkling that perhaps there was something manipulative about my favourite super-heroes trying to sell me on sugared snack cakes.
This evening as we wrapped up the new episode (which is a lot of fun, and features a fan favourite we haven’t seen in ages) a new Michelin tires ad appeared capturing all of our collective attentions. Leave it to “The Michelin Gentleman” Bibendium to capture all our imaginations. We may have zero collective interest in tires or automotive goods in general… but a man made out of tires? Now that’s something. It’s always the ad campaigns that push the envelope that remain the lasting impressions. Think of anthropomorphized mascots alone: A man made out of tires, a walking beverage container, and a giant legume (with strangely effeminate legs) - all icons, all instantly recognizable, all celebrities in their own twisted rights.
I don’t really think I had a point to this when I started, other than eventually pointing out the brilliant Hostess crime-fighting gallery over at Seanbaby, but maybe that alone is enough to keep us thinking until next week.
If not, I’ve just recently discovered some more webcomics which just might be suitable for part of your regularly balanced breakfast: Applegeeks always had fine art and some sharp writing… and they still do, Questionable Content’s Indie-music sensibility and ultra simplistic art style grow more dear to me daily, and Wapsisquare reminds me of old newspaper daily strips… it’s one of those sites I like to read every couple of months in a big bunch. There should be something in there for everyone just in case you don’t like talking about 1980’s advertising mascots… but I can’t imagine who honestly wouldn’t.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
April 27, 2004
As time goes by, I am learning more and more to appreciate the process of post-production. In any artform, it is essential, of course. Jay once told me that ‘good writing is re-writing’, and the very concept at the time seemed ludicrous. I loved the initial rush of ideas, the wild and uncontained spill of words. As I continued to write, however, I came to realize how absolutely right he was. With the first draft, you mine for the material with which to build a story. As good as it may be, it’s not a story until you craft it into one.
Now, working on Dead End Days, I get to see that process with the other medium I love, film. The images you capture on camera are the materials. Good filmmaking is in the editing.
The editing duties for Dead End Days fall largely on the shoulders of one man, who doesn’t get nearly enough mention for all the work he does: Mike Thorn. Mike spends night after night in front of Editing Machine 3000 [The Editing Machine Of The FUTURE! - Ed], spinning our proverbial straw into gold (with creative consultation from Matt, of course). He has been editing the series since episode 1, so long ago. And yet his name hardly appears on the website. He does it all for conversation with four constantly sleep-deprived filmmakers, and the free meals cooked at the Fox Brothers’ Bistro.
So, while I’m holding the conch, I’d like to highlight a few key moments, if I might, where his keen eye and excellent sense of the material allowed him to create some fantastic moments with imaginative use of cutting.
Episode 4 – The fear, the shadowy figures, the rising tension as Ashley was stalked by someone, or something, that had suddenly sprung from the alley behind her. And the key to it all: jump cuts. Much of the uncomfortable, edgy feel of this episode comes from the disconcerting cuts Mike chose for the chase, instantly putting the audience ill-at-ease, which is right where they should be.
Episode 12 – The first sure sign that not all zombies are as wholesome as Bruce. The slow build of the zombie scene which ran under the main action in this episode was the careful work of Mike, who realized it might be more effective to tell the story in building pieces, rather than simply conveying it.
Episode 17 – The date montage (one of my personal favourites). With a montage, the success of the episode always depends on the editor, since timeline and continuity suddenly don’t matter. Mike did a great job picking those golden moments in each scene which showed best the budding romance between Ashley and Bruce. And honourable mention goes to Matt on this one, for providing the great three-image intro to the piece.
Episode 18 – We gave Mike a hard task, which he pulled off brilliantly. When we were shooting this, we had two effect shots, the walls moving in on Eric, and that Hitchcock classic, the Vertigo-shot which distorts the percieved distance in the background while leaving the key figure steady. They were meant as alternates, should one of them look horrible. The trouble was, they both worked. So, we told Mike to find a way to use both of them, even though they technically covered the same moment in time. And he did, and it looked great.
Episode 20 – The opening, with Evan on the phone, was originally conceived as a single, continuous conversation. However, upon viewing the footage, Mike decided to cut it up into the Gordon Gekko-esque series of insincere statements that you see in the episode. Not just interesting, but an improvement on the material he was given.
Episode 21 – On a lighter note, there was a brilliant moment in this episode that came out of the heads of Matt and Mike in this one. Matt created Dennis’ ludicrous handshake, which was funny enough on it’s own. But Mike decided what it needed was more thumb-shaking, so by well-timed cuts, he makes it appear twice as long as it was in actuality.
Some of my favourite moments in the series have come about largely from his ideas, and I just thought it was time we drew attention to it. Pasta and pats on the back only go so far.
[Clearly you've never seen Mike's cooking... he should be paying us for the priviledge - Ed]
Rule Zero…
April 23, 2004
First up this week. Dead-heads in the GTA should make plans this weekend to visit Fuzion Juice/Coffee/Bubble Tea on 1328 Danforth Avenue (Just East of Danforth and Greenwood on the North side of the street). Andy is a great guy who was super accommodating to let us shoot there, and it’s a great store. Firefox gets his frequent Bubble-Tea hook-ups there, and I’ve been known to swing by every now and then for a tasty large mango (perhaps with green apple jelly if I’m feeling particularly saucy). Tell Andy “hi” for us! It’s only through the support of folks like Andy that we can keep churning out the great new episodes.
flesh and blood is going to beat the damn monster. -Adam Smith
So if we again look to the brightest minds of futurists and realists to suggest where we’re driving this crazy race called humanity, it becomes clear that perhaps it’s not the humble servants we should be worried about but what happens when we lose interest in forcing machines to do what we want, and go right to the root of the problem. From Information super-highway, to Information super-race in one easy step. I guess this week I’ve been struck with the obvious, but unsettlingly evident distinct impression that it’s rarely the “robot” that we have to worry about. Creating three laws for a robot’s creators should be a much more pressing concern. Perhaps Adam smith was right, he just wasn’t looking at the right ‘damn monster’.
…
Did I mention we have a Shipping Sale going on at the store until the end of the month? Well we do!
We have stuffed many pinatas for your birthday celebration!
April 20, 2004
Hello Sportsfans!
With the NHL/NBA Playoffs in mid-swing (or swoosh, as it may be), those of us who have no interest in hockey/basketball whatsoever are forced to band together and explore other means of entertainment that don’t involve oversized jerseys, defacing our vehicles, painting our bodies, or shouting at electronic devices. Though I’m all for the support of sweaty men (lord knows Dead End Days has it’s quotient of sweaty men filled), guzzling beer and eating your weight in hot wings, I just don’t understand getting so emotionally involved with the journey of a small black piece of rubber.
Now let me take a moment while my producer throttles me.
[Editors Note: As 'Dead End Days' prides itself on it's journalistic integrity, I would never berate or question Matt simply because he fails to recognize the greatest sport in the world. As the HTML-guru I might be selective in the links I select... but it's not like I'm putting on the foil.]
Having recently been deported from Canada for comments such as these, I have plenty of time to sit around with my newly acquired portable DVD player and get lost in the far more meaningful world of film. (Please note my sarcasm, and don’t get all pissy sports fans, I’m just fuckin’ with ya.)
Thus begins yet another installment of
Movies You Ought to Like (and if You Don’t, You Suck) by Matt Hoos.
The banding together of these two forces would give rise to some of the most memorable comedy pieces ever created. Ghostbusters, Animal House, Vacation, European Vacation, Christmas Vacation, The Jerk, Strange Brew, Spies Like Us, Fletch, The Man With Two Brains, Innerspace, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid,Trains, Planes and Automobiles, Who is Harry Crumb?, Fletch Lives, Caddyshack, The Blues Brothers, Funny Farm, Parenthood, Uncle Buck, The Lonely Guy, Great Outdoors, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Summer Rental, Brewster’s Millions, All of Me, Armed and Dangerous, Roxanne, Stripes, Little Shop of Horrors, Dragnet, and of course, The Muppet Movie. Tell me that’s not an impressive list.
Now, if you read this list out loud, and listen very carefully, you can actually hear Adam Sandler, David Spade, Rob Schneider and Mike Myers shitting their pants.
The movie that stands at the apex of this era for me, is the culmination of the combined comedy stylings of Steve Martin, Martin Short and Chevy Chase. This little slice of comedy pie is known as the Three Amigos. What can I say? Even to this day, the small adventure of Lucky Day, Dusty Bottoms, and Little Ned Nederlander still makes me chuckle. From the opening song to the fall of El Hupo (with that snappy, clever ‘everybody sew real fast’ trick they pulled), the film stands as an engaging testament to what has sadly become a bygone era. Martin, Short and Chase were clearly at the top of their game, and the only thing that can ruin this movie now is if you allow your mind to stray to the likes of Bringing Down the House, Snow Day and Primetime Glick.
I’d like everyone now to sit back and reminisce about their favourite part of Three Amigos. Is it the daring bird-call break-in to the studio to retrieve their costumes? Their rendition of ‘My Little Buttercup’ in the Mexican cantina? The summoning and immediate accidental killing of the invisible swordsman while visiting the singing bush? Or is it my brother’s favourite part, when the turtle simply says ‘G’night, Ned.’
Admit it, it’s hard to pick just one moment. Perhaps it’s time to dust off the beta-max, find the copy you taped off TV and take yourself back to the decade when Steve Martin’s hair was… white… ah, screw it. Viva las Amigos!
Peace. Go Refs Go!
Suckers.
[Overtime Results - Flames: 3 Canucks: 2 Boo-Ya-HOO! - Ed]
To Geek, or not to Geek?
April 16, 2004
Since I’m still getting feedback (and new viewers) through the mini-essay on Cerebus #300 I thought I might try and incorporate a little more
writing and a little less hyperbole into these new episode updates. There’s certainly only so many ways we can remind you of each new episode.
Sandy Starr has written an insightful piece for Spiked entitled “The geek shall inherit the Earth” exploring why the mainstreaming of geek culture may in fact be an unwelcome thing, an article which resonated with me on a number of different levels. Certainly as a self-professed geek, I’ve often vocally championed various geeky interests to the non-disposed in a bid for more mainstream acceptance. What I am starting to realize though is that through constant advocacy of the creative products of various “geek
media” (Comic books, speculative fiction, anime…) proponents often lose sight that the underlying societal concerns about their various fandoms
are completely justified. Certainly the kind of anti-social solitary behaviors that are at the core of any rabid obsession are only enhanced by group size and mainstream acceptance. In point of fact, I’ve known many groups of fans to wear these aberrant behaviors as badges of honor. One troubling example that has stuck with me was overhearing an individual brag (with an almost comical lack of basic grammatical speaking ability) about the egregious amount of school she had skipped in order to repeatedly watch the anime series “Dragonball Z”. Ever since, I’ve been vaguely troubled when arguing the merits of foreign animation that for very classic work that folks would be richer for experiencing (say, any of the truly groundbreaking films of Hayao Miyazaki) there’s a thousand teenagers stifling their critical though process’ by hardwiring Toonami into their brains. I think where Starr really hit the nail on the head was with the observation
Thanks to the internet, marginal obsessions can be indulged in at unlimited length, with like-minded people around the world. […] And if you dislike or disagree with someone you encounter in this faceless environment, then rather than go through the process of being forced to account for your worldview, you can simply retreat from confrontation. Such an environment breeds individuation and solipsism.
What troubles me about the truly rabid developing geek culture is that unique ability to retreat from difficult challenges and questions by simply running to the confines of a digital enclave where you can converse only with those who share your particular outlook and commiserate en mass about an outside world that “doesn’t understand”. If your macro group poses difficult questions, simply form a smaller sub-set and again gravitate towards those who share your views. Rinse. Repeat. Looking at how internally fractured fandoms invariably become with labyrinthine classifications, sub-groups, super-specialized interests, and internal politics only enforces the point. The Brunching Shuttlecocks Geek Hierarchy starts to seem more like sage prophesy than satire.
I guess for me, part of the joy of geeky pursuits is the fresh perspective they bring to non-related interests and worldviews. Understanding professional wrestling can give you unique insight into the period appeal of Baroque Opera, particularly well written science fiction can help frame modern ethical and societal dilemmas, foreign pop culture can illuminate areas where our own domestic offerings are stale or limited… the list goes on and on. However if you pursue these interests at the exclusion of all others you will never make those connections, and then you are consuming mindlessly because it is easy and you know that no challenging self-introspection, or critical thought will be required. In my mind at least this is the worst kind of consumerism.
Maybe this topic really isn’t out of place on a zombie-themed site after all?
Link Watch:
April has so far been a record-setting month here, and I am very grateful for everyone who has spread the word about the show. Having had films I worked years on play at screening where only a handful of people actually attended, I can’t tell you how much it’s appreciated. That being said, can any one out there read Bulgarian (bottom of the page, you can’t miss it)? I’m not sure, but perhaps we won the coveted HOBO! HOBO! HOBO! Award?
