Nine Thoughts After Nine Days of Vacation

1.  I get pretty heated when the ever-arrogant “child-free” masses go on their anti-kid rants, and that topic is way too large to tackle here–that said, I always find myself temporarily joining their ranks when a screaming child is on a plane.  Yet understand that stance is completely reactionary.  Planes are uncomfortable, I’m usually tired, and that kid is really loud, while that kid’s ears are probably popping and they don’t know what’s going on, nor do they have the capacity to comprehend it (this excuse expires when the child is older than a toddler).  A parent can do little more than comfort them.  But I’ll tell you something a parent CAN do.  They can change their diaper.  There are changing tables in the lavatories.  Use them.  We’re 30 minutes into a two-hour flight–CHANGE IT!!!

2.  After a year away from regular TV and video games and movies, I found myself unable to stand television for long periods of time . . . yet still unable to pull away.  Headaches and eye strain galore plus some schlock that the History Channel is trying to pass off as history that I really don’t want to watch . . . but for some reason I still couldn’t walk away and do something like read the book I brought or play more guitar.  I think I’ll purposely stay away from large amounts of TV for a while longer.  Yet with that said . . .

3.  I REALLY like that show Pawn Stars.  When I saw previews for it back when it was starting, I was sure it would be 50% pawn shop stuff (whatever that was) and 50% inter-store drama, much like the way American Chopper was done.  But it’s not.  It’s the rock version of Antiques Roadshow!  There’s a little “inter-store” drama, as I put it, but that’s mostly staged and used to enhance the main focus: the stuff people bring in.   I do call “fake” on at least one part, though.  Chumlee spent $1500 on a “The Gibson” mandolin because none of the other guys were around to help him/stop him.  He took it to a guitar shop to authenticate it shortly after to find out it was a fake worth maybe $100.  I don’t buy it.  No pun intended.  But that’s one small flaw in an otherwise great show.  I wonder if I can find it online.

4.  Using voice control via SYNC to select songs off of my iPod is probably more fun than listening to the actual songs.  And very convenient.  My favorite successful voice command: “Play track there are a million reasons why this may not work and just one good one for why it will.”  Thank you, Moneen.

5.  Some people may be familiar with the episode of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives where they go to Springfield, Illinois and have a horseshoe.  Specifically, they go to a place called Charlie Parker’s.  The funny thing about Charlie Parker’s is that I spent the majority of my life driving past that place and never cared to stop in, if I even noticed it at all.  But now that it’s been on TV, and because since leaving I’ve developed an appreciation for local restaurants and cuisine for wherever I go, I had to go there, and, well . . . it’s fine.  Nothing bad to report.  But there are better places to get a horseshoe.  Also, I don’t like feeling like a tourist in my hometown.  I felt the urge to make sure my waitress knew I grew up there just to ease my own insecurity.

6.  It’s very sad to me that towns like Springfield, Marion, Carbondale, and Murphysboro, Illinois have these great downtowns and old architecture and so much potential and character, but all new and successful modern development is on the edges, so the heart of the town dies or moves to a place that just feels stale.  I’ll expand on this in a later post, because it’s really bothering me.

7.  Hauling a new guitar with you across the country and back on four planes is very nerve-wracking.  Too nerve-wracking?  We’ll see next time.

8.  Maybe it’s just how I was raised, but there’s something great about sitting down to coffee with a bunch of old(er) guys and just shooting the breeze before daybreak.  Those guys aren’t necessarily the closest of friends, but they all know each other well, they all come and go as their day requires, and the conversation is always a riot.  So many things are comforting and inspiring about it; I kind of wish I had something like that in Seattle.  Sure, I could start my own (I’m certainly not lacking for places for coffee), but it wouldn’t have the same casual and sincere feel to it, let alone the fact guys I know here don’t often get out of bed by 5 a.m. like me.

9.  The thing I like the absolute least about traveling: showers.  I like being able to walk into the bathroom and step into the shower without having to think about it much, and be able to walk out much the same.  When I travel, I have to find and gather my things, find a good place for the towel, make sure I have all my clothes strategically placed so I don’t have to streak any family members, and so on.  Returning to my own bed is very nice, but returning to my own shower is even better.

Writing a Superman Story? Here’s Five Things You MUST Include . . .

I’ve heard it said that Superman is a hard character to write for, since he’s so powerful and finding a good foe or challenge for him can be something of a task.  I say, “Bull!”  Writing for Superman is EXTREMELY easy!  You can tell how easy it is if you read some of his graphic novels or watch some of his movies, because they all tend to do at least ONE of the following five things–usually more.

1.  Make a lot of allusions to Superman being like Jesus. Because, you know, Superman and Jesus are totally alike.  Personally, my favorite parts of the Bible are when Jesus busts through the walls of the Hebrew temple, melts the swords of the Romans with his heat vision, and freezes the Sea of Galilee with his ice breath right before walking out on it.  Therefore, be sure to toss in all kinds of allusions to how Kal-El is like the Son of God.  It makes perfect sense.  Last of an extinct alien race raised on Earth by adoptive parents to grow up and become an indestructible man flying around in his pajamas vs. one-third of a triune, creator deity, born of a virgin, sent to die for the salvation of mankind.  To-may-to, to-mah-to.

Perfect!

2.  Give Superman some kind of power, skill, or ability on a deistic level.  It’s a common misconception that Superman is too powerful.  He’s actually not powerful enough.  Being bulletproof, the ability to fly, vision powers, breath powers, super speed, super strength–all child’s play.  When you’re writing your story, feel free to make some new power up.  Anything.  Actually, the bigger the better.  We’ve seen new powers as small as erasing memories with a kiss, to as large as creating alternate universes inside the Fortress of Solitude.  Feel free to go beyond that, even (though it is tough to think about going much bigger than creating LIFE).  The beauty of understanding this about Superman is that he’s a walking deus ex machina.  It’s IMPOSSIBLE to write yourself into any corner with this guy.

. . . and fanboys everywhere will call your schlock "brilliant."

3.  Destroy the Fortress of Solitude.  Oh yeah, it’s got to go.  First, don’t ask yourself if it’s been destroyed before–not important.  Just blow the damn thing up.  Have someone trash it.  Have a meteor smash it.  Have a ball!  What’s a Fortress of Solitude if Superman is alone there all the time and no one knows about it?  Make it common knowledge, and then have them DESTROY IT.  Couldn’t be simpler.  And be sure to get to it quick, too.  Don’t waste your precious story time establishing it as a true place of refuge for the Man of Steel.  Just assume everyone already knows about it, have the bad guy show up, and BOOM goes the fortress.  Observe below:

plus

equals

Now you win!!

4.  Have some Kryptonians show up.  It’s really very logical when  you think about it.  Part of Superman’s character is there’s a deep lonliness in him because his entire race, his entire planet, no longer exists.  He’s the last Kryptonian.  So what better twist than to have some stray Kryptonians show up?  I mean, if General Zod was such a huge hit, then MORE Kryptonians equals Superman story gold!  Yet we can’t have EVERYONE come out of the Phantom Zone.  Just say they were wandering the galaxy somehow or somewhere.  Without a spaceship.  Oh, sure, there’s the fact that Superman gets his power because of the light from our yellow sun, so Kryptonians wandering around in space away from yellow stars doesn’t actually make any sense–but so what?  Just write it. 

Pictured: The Opposite of Extinct

5.  Do not, under any circumstances, bother with the difference between “dark and brooding” and “confident and serious.”  No one likes a hero who has it all together, right?  I mean, since the mid-1970′s, all of our heroes in comic books and action movies have been nothing but good-hearted, charming, stand-up citizens. . . . BORing.  We need heroes that are conflicted and moody and lonely and disturbed and, oh what’s that word the kids are using these days . . . “emo.”  The point of all of this is to help you understand how writing for Superman is easy, so trying to figure out the right balance between smiling altruist and “humanity” is out of the question.  That’s too hard.  That would require paying attention to his motivations to justify non-happy emotions, like anger.  Instead, just make him dark and angry all the time, OR make him really sad and whiny.  Your choice!

This makes Supes in no way like any other superhero!

Now you know  how to write the perfect Superman story!  Mix and match these five tips and you are guaranteed a winner!  Happy writing!

Hey Man, Quit Wasting That Gibson!

Let’s open with a story.

Years ago a friend and I worked in a department store.  My friend was working one day and had to help cover the registers.  It was shortly after Christmas, probably January or December of whatever year it was (1999-2001).  My friend said he was ringing out a mother and her obnoxious 10/11/12-year-old son.  The son was whining about her not buying him something he wanted, and my friend got the impression that this kid often whined his way to getting his way, but the mother was, albeit sheepishly, resisting this time.  “No, I said!  We just had Christmas,” she said to him.  He returned, pouting, “Yeah, but I didn’t get nothing.”  Mom seemed a little annoyed, “A Gibson Les Paul is not ‘nothing.’”

My friend checked with me later, “Hey, are Gibson Les Pauls expensive?”

Yes, friend.  They are.

Pictured: Cha-ching

Wrapped up in that story is the essence of what I want to address here:  I really can’t stand seeing people own very nice (and very expensive) guitars (or any musical instrument, really) but not really USE them.  It is simultaneously irritating and stupid.  And understand that this isn’t just Gibsons (though they’re the most commonly abused as I’ve seen), but any nice,  high-end guitar or equipment.

Why?  Because those guitars were designed and built by people whose PASSION is guitar.  You can’t be wishy-washy about that instrument and make and sell one over which millions of guitarists melt over the sound.  Sticking with Les Pauls for this example–first of all, that’s the guitar designed by Les Paul.  The man was a walking legend by the time he was 30.  He INVENTED the electric guitar.  He played one professionally until he died at the age of NINETY-FOUR.  The guitar he designed has become synonomous with other greats like Jimmy Page or Frank Zappa or Pete Townsend.  You don’t get a job working in the American factory that builds $2000+ Les Paul guitars because you’re a layman needing work and you filled out an application.  You have to be an artisan.  It’s the same idea for any other high-end guitar, whether made by Gibson, Fender, Gretsch, Paul Reed Smith, or anyone.  Well . . . anyone but Jay Turser, but one really shouldn’t bring up Daewoo when talking about muscle cars.

I’ve known people with really nice guitar equipment that barely learned how to play, and really didn’t care too much to advance.  Look–if you don’t want to advance at guitar or any instrument, that’s your choice, but to have nice stuff and let it collect dust is shameful.  It’s like someone buying a professional-grade mixer and just using it once a month to beat eggs.  Imagine being a professional chef, or a even just a very enthusiastic cook and foodie, and visiting their home and seeing an amazing $700 piece of equipment sitting on their counter and learning that they really only know how to cook speghetti and scrambled eggs and don’t care to learn anything more; when  you point it out they chuckle, “Oh, yeah–that.  It’s nice, but I usually just order out, really.”  It’s close to the same thing for me when I see that Gibson ES-335 sitting next to that 2×12 Orange Combo amp in a corner in the room you never go in.  (note: I’ve never actually seen THAT, but you get the point.)  There’s a certain amount of honesty with ourselves that we should all have to be able to understand that we don’t need $2000+ of stuff if we’re going to use it twice a year.  That guitar and amp would be happier in the hands of someone who appreciates it, and you can go drop $200-400 from the sale on a Squier Telecaster and an 8-inch Peavy amp.  Everybody wins!

Now, to clarify . . . if you have that $700 mixer and don’t know how to cook or bake very well, but you got the mixer with intentions of doing and learning more–go get ‘em.  So when a beginner picks up something like a $1200 Fender Strat, I still think it’s a bit of overkill for such early stages, but if they’re really going to work at it, I’ll happily keep my mouth shut.  Like the guy that I recently learned about (through sources I will not reveal in my blog) that spent $3500 on a Les Paul and is a total beginner.  Stupid?  Probably.  But if he sticks with it, what can I say against him?

Well that’s all on a personal level.  I have to KNOW someone before I’ll notice wasted guitars in their home, and if thats the furthest this annoyance went it wouldn’t be worth its own blog post.  But it keeps going . . .

:-(

Okay, so the Jonas Brothers are very over-bashed in my opinion.  Not because they’re actually talented (from the little I’ve heard, I don’t believe it), but because before Justin Bieber came along, they were the popular flavor for the internet to hate.  So please understand that I’m not jumping on, nor trying to revive, that band wagon.  It’s that I’ve seen dozens of pictures of these kids around the interwebs, and in so many of them they’re “playing” guitars I’ve dreamed of owning for a decade.  Like lil’ scrunchy-face up there.  (And if you didn’t know what a Gibson ES-335 was when I mentioned it earlier–that’s it, in the hands of a child).  They don’t really USE them . . . do you think  he even touches that Bigsby arm, except maybe to move it out of the way?  It’s all for show, and that’s a waste.  But then again . . . the Jonas Brothers are owned by Disney, so they have the money to throw around.  What about bands that AREN’T funded by milti-billion dollar corporations?

A few months ago a friend commented on a video of the Plain White T’s song “Boomerang” (a band whose style reminds me, in the worst way, of that song “I’ll Never Let You Go” by Third Eye Blind; gross).  I had the video imbedded when I wrote this, but the account has since been removed.  He said that it’s ridiculous that three guitarists are all playing the same chord in the same voicings.  He’s right.  I add that it is also ridiculous that bands like this bother to buy such expensive equipment (they were playing a Les Paul, a Gibson SG, and a custom acoustic of a brand I didn’t notice) when they’re going to just play power chords and not try to do much else.

. . . for example . . .

I guess if you’ve earned the money, there’s not that much wrong with it (plus you can write it off your taxes if you make music for a living), and that leaves me with not much to say against it . . . except respect what you’re holding!  After having your band recording and touring for years, wouldn’t you want to improve your skills to improve your sound?  No?  I guess that’s just me.

A while back I saw a show with four bands.  The second of the four was who I went to see (named Moneen), and the opening band actually stole the show in my opinion (named Moving Mountains).  There were two Fender Telecasters and two Gibson ES-335′s between those two groups.  I should point out that the ES-335′s were VERY used.  Whether those guys bought them new or not I don’t know, but calling their appearance “weathered” is putting it lightly.  In both bands, the guitars were put to very good use; they were clearly loved and played often.  None of those guys are necessarily hair-metal-virtuoso-level guitarists, but they’re really good players that do a lot with their instruments.  You can click that link above if you want to look into Moving Mountains, here is Moneen showing skill and comfort with their instruments:

Then the first of the two headliners got on stage.  Eisley.  I have nothing inherently against Eisley.  Actually, after hearing the song in this video I might look into them a little more.  But take note of the guitarist NOT singing . . .

Since I’ve seen this band live, I can assure you that ALL of their equipment is top-of-the-line.  I was actually a little weirded out by how un-weathered their stuff was, but maybe they’d just done a shopping spree before the tour.  But did you watch the second guitarist?  That’s what she did most of the show, too.  I’m not saying she shouldn’t be in the band; I am saying you don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on guitar equipment if you’re going to play bare-bones basics.  In principle, it is a waste and, in some degree, an insult.

Then there was the headlining band:  Say Anything.  I don’t have much good to say about them in general so there’s not much to say about their equipment.

I think the last and primary point that I want to drive home with all of this is that we should remember that a guitar is a musical instrument made to make music.  It’s become such a symbol of so much else that even players like myself lose touch with that reality.  But what would be the result if people would learn to enjoy spending time with something like actually playing that expensive instrument they bought instead of refreshing Facebook or turning on Black Ops?  I can write some other time about the idea of not assuming that being good at an instrument means you have to join a touring rock band, but as I pull everything together that I’ve said in this post, that’s a large part of what I’m saying.  I think, anyway.  Or maybe I’m just jealous.

The Guitar Store Experience

Several months ago I bought a new guitar.  Since I bought it from a guitar store, it is that store’s policy (as it is with most or all guitar stores) that string changes and set-ups are free for the life of the instrument.  Considering a set-up can run you $80 easily, this ain’t a bad deal.  The advantage to this is obvious.  I now have it set up every time I change the strings.  Also, in my defense, I have THEM change the strings because the guitar has a floating bridge and I don’t feel like dealing with that myself yet.

The disadvantage, though, is that it puts me in a guitar store about once every month to six weeks, at minimum.  (By the way, I’m calling it a “guitar store” to differentiate a place that sells musical equipment–not just guitars–from a “music store” which could be confused with the “record store”).  The reason that frequenting these places is a pain is obvious to those of us who play instruments, but perhaps not so much to those who don’t.  The reason I don’t like going to the guitar store so often isn’t because I’m afraid I’ll spend money–it’s easy to avoid $350 impulse buys–it’s because of the notorious nature of the demeanors of the guitar store employees and guitar store frequenters.  The folks that work or hang out regularly in these places are like some special kind of vampire that feed on feigning extreme superiority over their fellow musicians–and that analogy includes the insatiable nature of their hunger.  *I* for one always thought it would be a neat experience to work in, or even own, a guitar store, but it actually seems like many of these guys are walking through an eternal hell of frustration and simplicity and a general lack of respect for their obvious expertise, dude.  I also thought it would be cool to be someone that was on a first-name-basis with those folks, especially places here in Seattle, because these are guys that real professionals come to and depend on, but those that are are so icy cold to anyone that’s an unfamiliar face that it chills me even to walk by them.  And sometimes I’m not completely sure any of these people are aware of the states of their existence.

So what goes on?  Egos.  Insecurities.  Differences in opinion.  You think it’s bad when you sit a PC nut and a Mac nut next to each other?  Try watching what happens when you put a customer who likes digital effects in front of a staff member who’s all about analog.  Or send a guy to try out an amp that starts playing some Death Cab in front of a guy who started playing thirty years ago because someone played him some Zeppelin.  Much of this is simply being fallible humans with abilities that we foolishly let define our self-worth, but that’s really just the start.  You put a guy who knows how to think about himself and receive for himself due to his skill on an instrument into a situation where he’s expected to think about other people, some of them rude, some difficult, and some frankly completely moronic (i.e., customer service), and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.  Multiply that problem by a couple of generations of staff and turnovers and you have an environment that is bad enough that a very good guitarist I know says he avoids guitar stores as much as possible, now.  He just can’t take it anymore.

And the regulars?  I’ve been told that many regulars actually annoy the employees, too (but that doesn’t get the employees off the hook).  Some of them so obviously to me went there to try to show off how fast their fingers can move that I doubt they know that’s why they’re there.  They’ve lost touch with reality to that degree.  But honestly those regulars aren’t even the worst ones–the worst ones are the buddies of the employees that chat who-knows-what with them all day and make you feel like dirt for interrupting so you can buy some freaking guitar strings.  If  you need to ask actual questions about some gear, you’d better wait until the employee comes to you, lest you be (at best) chuckled at for wanting to check out a solid-state Peavey amp.

It doesn’t take long to figure out that you are looked upon as an inferior animal in a guitar store.  We start out naïvely walking into one hoping to find someone excited about the six-string that’s equally excited to help us improve our knowledge and maybe, a little at a time, our gear.  But we quickly figure out that this is not a retailer-customer relationship.  Oh, no.  It is a skill competition.  Most of the time you just know that the guy is better than you at everything guitar related and you feel him rubbing it in just by him “helping.”

Play anything less than "Eruption" and you're the joke for the rest of the day.

And pray–PRAY–that the guy doesn’t actually demonstrate something before handing you the guitar.  I’ve had that happen.  “You just did 32nd notes across the neck at 120 bpm.  I’m not touching that thing.  I never can.  In fact, I might quit playing.”  Insecurity is a big problem, and if we’d just get over it, they’d have no power over us.  But easier said than done.

Before I go any further, I want to of course offer the disclaimer that not every employee of a music store I’ve ever met is like this.  I can think of . . . six from the fourteen stores I can currently remember interacting with their staff.  Yes, I counted.  (And as I write this, I keep remembering more stores, but not more nice employees.)  So those people–two of which work at the store I currently frequent and one of those changes the strings on my guitar–are cool.  But all fourteen stores had at least one employee that, whether they knew it or not, made me feel an inch tall for even daring to talk to them.  Actually, only one of them had just one, and only three guys worked there and I was personal friends with the other two . . . hmph.

So this is rough, right?  Musicians can’t logically buy their stuff off of Amazon and Musician’s Friend all the time.  You need to try the stuff out; you need to have guarantees of service; you need to be able to hold and compare gear.  Plus the option to trade in isn’t a bad addition, either.  So what to do?  Well, if you’re going to avoid difficult interactions with these people when going into a guitar shop, there are few things you need to do or not do.  Let’s go over some of them.

DON’T . . .
. . . Exist.  I guess we’re off to a tough start.  By merely walking into a music store and actually having a physical presence, you are more than likely going to annoy one of these guys.  So avoid existing.  Got it?  Next . . .

. . . Ask for guidance.  One time I decided I wanted to change the pickups on one of my guitars for purely aesthetic reasons.  They’re not amazing pickups to start, so no harm could be done overall to the guitar if I’m upgrading to something like Gibson 57′s, but my primary motivation is that it would look really cool.

Seriously! Imagine that thing with some chrome humbuckers! YOW!

I asked one guy at one store for advice, and in the tone and body language that made me very sorry for bothering him, he said, “You can’t just change out pickups like strings.”  I went to a different store to ask the same thing and he took one look at the guitar and said with a near-sigh, “It’ll cost more than the guitar’s worth . . .”  For the record, it’s a low-end guitar and I KNOW that, but it’s not a “Wal-Mart guitar.”  Sheesh.

. . . Ask general questions.  There’s no better way to make one of these guys mad for wasting their time.  Rockman on Yahoo! Answers tells his story:

I picked up the guitar in my teens as soon as it occurred to me that I should AND as the opportunity hit just right.  To this day, I play TOTALLY by ear, can’t read a note.  However, I don’t know what this one guy’s thing with me was–perhaps he was put off that I wasn’t “formal”–and he was The Proprietor of the place!  After frequenting his locale for everything from strings to some books, etc, one day I asked him a perfectly innocent question in near-reverent tones of a teenager asking an elder for his personal advice.  In a most condescending monotone he snapped, “You should tune your guitar as often as it needs it!”  I couldn’t believe he thought I’d said that after several convos wherein I know he knew I was perfectly coherent.  What I’d asked was, “How often do you CHANGE your strings?”  I realized during my stroll home that perhaps his hearing had dissipated, but the insult wasn’t even Ethical with me, no, MY thing has remained Intellectual–as in, if anything wouldn’t he’ve looked up and asked me if he heard me right.  I mean, he was on site 6 days a week, he clearly knew his music, he wasn’t dumb or on drugs, he couldn’t've been more than mid-40s. …and, as importantly as anything, I wasn’t some kid hangin’ around, blasting amps with hoodlum friends…I never went back, either!

I should add in that I’ve asked how often to change strings and been understood perfectly well, and still talked down to.

. . . Be stumped by a guitar problem, ever.  A good friend of mine had problems with his Gibson SG not staying in tune when he bent the strings.  One of the things you need to do with a guitar is to stretch the strings out so that there’s no stretch left in them when you bend them and they don’t lose their pitch.  Well, he’d done that and figured something was wrong with the guitar.  Maybe the tuners were loose.  He took it to his guitar guy who, before my friend could finish explaining what he’d done, said, “Oh, well you just gotta stretch the strings out.”  This guy stretched the strings out and the problem was fixed.  I can speak up and state with absolute assurance that my friend knows how to take care of a guitar, but he still walked out of there with his tail between his legs.

DO . . .

. . . Know exactly what your tastes and preferences and desires are for any musical situation before even stepping foot in the store.  You cannot browse a guitar store with intent to buy, but requiring salesman assistance, without having to answer a billion questions about your “preferences” that you may not necessarily know the answer to.  But that salesman knows what he wants in every detail and exactly how he wants it and Lord help you if you prevent him from getting it.  So how is it YOU don’t have any idea what YOU want?  You probably suck at guitar.  I once went shopping for some kind of device that let me play guitar through headphones.  I knew someting had to exist, but I didn’t know what.  I was also sure there was a variety of choices available . . . so I asked a guy.

“Well what do you want to do with it?”
“Play through headphones because I live in an apartment.”
“So do you want to record with it?”
“I don’t know.  Maybe someday, but I don’t have recording stuff right now.“
“Do you want effects in it?”
“I guess . . . the headphones are what’s important, though.”
[annoyed] “Well lots of things let you play through headphones; I need to know what you want to help you find something.”
“As long as it lets me use headphones, it’s fine.”

See?  The normal approach would be, “You require a single function, these are the other options you have with that single function available.  Which would you prefer?”  Instead I got “You require a single function.  That’s not enough information because there are other options available with that single function.”

 . . . Know absolutely everything about the guitar there is to know–ever.  Oh, the condescension I got in the question, “When was the last time you had this guitar set up?”  Set up?  What’s that?  I didn’t know and I’d been playing for eleven years.  (A “set up” is making sure the neck is trussed right, the strings are intonated correctly, the pickups are sitting the right distance from the strings, and so on).  And the time I mentioned my guitar had a bit of a buzz?  “It’s the nature of the instrument to have a slight buzz.”  Oh.  Funny.  I was always told that a buzz was bad, but if you say so.  Thank goodness I never had to deal with these guys in my early days before I knew what the bridge and the nut were.  I know a lot, now, but I am still susceptible through conversations about wood types, neck contours, tuning machine differences, and so on.  Just a couple weeks ago I was buying some strings.  This store didn’t have my preferred size, so I was stuck getting something else (I was using a Groupon).  I wanted hex-core strings (vs. round-core), but wasn’t sure what brands had it.  One of the guys went into the other room to ask the main guitar guy and came back, “he says 99% of the wall is hex-core, and if it’s round-core it’s marked.”  Well how do you like that?  The guy wasn’t even in the same room and he got me.

So if  you ever end up needing to go into a guitar store, I hope this information can prepare you.  Tough skin is the best defense.  Godspeed.

The Most Ridiculous Comment Section Thread I’ve Ever Been a Part Of

It was a few months ago that I was at KOMO’s website and stumbled over an article called “First Date Tips:  Talk About George W. Bush.”  Now obviously I don’t care about or need dating tips anymore, but the “Talk About George W. Bush” thing seemed at least mildly amusing enough to get me to mindlessly click on it.  Naturally, the article wasn’t that interesting (probably mostly because, as I said, I don’t care about or need dating tips), but at the end of this list of “Do’s” and “Do not’s,” I caught a comment by a user named “Ron Burgandy” (sic) that amused me.

Now like most red-blooded, white, American males who were in their 20′s in 2005, I love the movie Anchorman.  And while it sometimes gets overly quoted, THIS was a good place for it.  It worked, and I laughed.

I’ve heard that quote used before, too.  And when it does, I like to follow up with the next line in the movie.

If you’re as nit-picky as I am, you may notice that I slightly misquoted it.  Ron doesn’t say “any” in the movie, just “That doesn’t make sense.”  As minor as that seems, it is worth noting as we move forward with the story.

Within a few minutes to a few hours, I got an email notification that “Ron Burgandy” replied.  “Fun!” I thought, as I was sure he was going to continue the back-and-forth I’d just stared.

Nope.

Of course they’re lines from the movie, “Ron.”  I know that; it’s why I said what I said.  My eye-rolling at this was strong enough to overcome a significant portion of my growing comment-section-restraint-maturity that I responded–

Then I went and found that scene in Anchorman on YouTube and added a second comment with nothing but the link.

And that should be it, right?  Done deal.  Guy quotes movie, second guy quotes next line in movie, guy doesn’t get it, second guy provides information for guy to see that he also quoted the movie.  The only logical next action on his part is one of two things.  He could feel silly and keep quiet, never acknowledging that I responded, because he saw what I had said but doesn’t want to admit he goofed; OR he comments with something to the effect of, “Oh, that’s right–my bad.”

But that’s not at all what “Ron Burgandy” did.

Wow.  Let’s evaluate what’s happened here.  It seems that “Ron” took my comment, and the subsequent video link, to mean that I was berating him because he didn’t quote Anchorman 100% verbatim and therefore he got it all wrong and should feel foolish.  Would anyone disagree with my assessment of his perspective?  And to think I was a little embarrassed by slightly misquoting it myself.

A few days later I got around to actually responding, and all I did was briefly point out what I thought would be known in the first place by a guy naming himself after a character in a movie he’s quoting.  I don’t have much else to add.  I just find myself needing an audience when ridiculousness of this magnitude comes my way.

An Open Letter to George Lucas

Dear Mr. Lucas,

I hope this finds you well.  Up front I’d like to apologize for being yet another Star Wars fan coming along to complain about the prequel trilogy, but please persist as you may find my take on this a little different from what you’re likely used to.

Let’s first mention that the prequels, in my opinion, were terrible.  I really liked episodes I and III in the theater, but upon seeing The Phantom Menace on VHS, and after a few months to think about Revenge of the Sith, I realized just how awful and poorly put together they were.  For posterity, I’ll mention that, though I didn’t want to admit it to myself, I thought Attack of the Clones  was awful while I was in the theater.  Seeing THAT one on VHS a year later only confirmed my feelings and I’ve not seen it since.

I’m not completely convinced that you and many other people out there really understand how big of a deal it is that those movies were so bad.  I loved Star Wars as a young child, and upon entering my adolescence discovered that nothing could have been cooler than spaceships and lightsabers.  I read several expanded universe books (the one I remember the best is The Truce at Bakura, if you happen to know that one).  I ate up the comic series Tales of the Jedi, which told stories of Jedi 4000 years before Luke Skywalker was even born.  It was really cool.  I watched the original trilogy so many times . . . I’d rather not try to count.  It’s easily over 100 viewings for each movie, and I’m completely serious.  I can still quote entire scenes from memory, and watching them even today I can’t help but say the lines right as or right before they happen, like listening to a song I’ve known for years.

“Darth Vader!  Only you could be so bold.  The Imperial Senate will not sit still for this; when they hear you’ve attacked a diplo–”
“Don’t act so surprised your highness, you weren’t on any mercy mission this time.  Several transmissions were beamed to this ship by rebel spies; I want to know what happened to the plans they sent you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.  I’m a member of the Imperial Senate on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan.”
“You are part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor!  Take her away!”

I could keep going with that scene without even having to pop the DVD in or looking it up online.  All the way through the part where Threepio cries out to the Sandcrawler from the Dune Sea. “Oh-vah hee-uh!!! Hey!  Heeeeeey!  Help!  Pleeeeease heeeelp!”  I hear the music intensify and see the screen wipe as I type that.

You could ask me anything about those movies, and to a degree about the expanded universe, and I could answer without hesitation.  And if someone said I was wrong, then I kindly informed them that their information was off–and even now at age 31 I say with all confidence that I WAS right in those situations.  I KNEW those movies.  I KNEW those characters.  I KNEW that story.

Now, I noticed pretty early on that the 1977 Star Wars was numbered “Episode IV,” and that this meant that there MUST be three more movies on the way.  I’d date this discovery on my part at around age 12, or 1992-1993.  And then the prequels were announced.  It was right around the time that the original trilogy was remastered with THX and re-released.  The magazine article I read mentioned that the titles at the time for the three movies were “The Clone Wars,” “The Wrath of Darth Vader,” and “Fall of the Republic.”  Granted, this was like 1994 or 1995 (putting me at age 14), and I understand that early in the creative process of film making titles are thrown around, but those names shaped what I was expecting from the future movies.  I spent lots of my free mental time daydreaming about the plots and the scenes and the emotional climaxes, and how certain story elements can be used to “set up” the original trilogy so that all six feel like a single unit. I’m not kidding–I spent a lot of time thinking about it and internally getting giddy with anticipation.

Come early 1997 when the special editions were released, people loved to talk to me about how there are three NEW Star Wars movies coming soon, and I’d tell them, “Yeah, I’ve known for years.”  I was a pro, George; make no mistake about it.

Star Wars, and by connection the anticipation of the prequels, defined a very large part of my adolescence.

And now . . . well.  I don’t need to nit-pick what was wrong with them here.  If you’re still not sure, Mr. Lucas, get right over to Red Letter Media’s site and watch the three reviews there.  He sums up everything and says it all better than I could have hoped to.

Do you see the problem here?  I am someone who spent countless hours not only watching your classic movies and reading the books, but discussing the trivia and in-universe hypothetical situations with other fans (and plenty of non-fans).  Then you answer every childhood dream I could have ever had by moving forward with those three new movies to complete the story, and everything seemed perfect in the world.  Everything that I said my adolescence was like prior to the Fall of 1998 when the first trailer for The Phantom Menace was released–first online and then before the Will Smith/Gene Hackman spy thriller Enemy of the State–was intensified exponentially, day after day, until I cheered with the crowd at the 12:01 showing (at which I was 3rd in line, by the way) at the top of my lungs when those yellow letters appeared on the screen and a few seconds later we saw words scrolling that we had not yet seen before in that context, except in our oldest and wildest dreams . . .

Episode I

And then the movie, George.  The movie.  Like I said, I liked it at the time, but it had no lasting power.  Each subsequent movie punched the fanboy in me in the gut a little harder.  Now here I am, six years after the last one came out (has it really been that long?) and I couldn’t really give two hoots about Star Wars.  Oh sure, I can still discuss it, but I like nerd and pop culture trivia discussions.  I can still sit through the old movies once in a while, especially with friends, but I like good movies (and they really are good, George).  I still like many Star Wars video games, but that’s really just because I like video games and a decent amount of the games based on or inspired by your film.  I plan on someday finally reading the Timothy Zahn book trilogy, but at this point that’s because I like reading and I own them.  But the true excitement that Star Wars gave me all those years ago is completely gone.  There were other things I loved back then, too, and coming across them or discussing them still give me warm feelings.  But not Star Wars.  Star Wars is essentially dead to me.

It was those movies.  Those movies and then that last kick-in-the-balls The Clone Wars animated movie.  That’s what did it.  So much of what was great about the original movies was knowing that the story of episodes I-III was going to be completely amazing, but what we got was pure crap.  And the part that hurts the most is not that “it turns out the story wasn’t that great after all,” but that the story COULD had have been great if you’d just TRIED to make it make sense instead of filming your first drafts.

Do you see?  YOU ruined it for me, George.  Everything that Star Wars was to me is now nearly completely lost.  The blood is on your hands.  You made those movies, you completely ran the entire creative process, you have no one else to blame for their awfulness and their devastating impact.  My Star Wars fandom and obsession is GONE.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.  I’m so glad it’s over, and if it took three terrible movies to finally snap me out of my daze, so be it.  I’m on the other side now and I’m loving my freedom.  I’ve seen guys over 30–heck, over 25–that despite everything are still completely in love with Star Wars, and it’s pathetic.  I’m not one of them anymore.  Sure, I can still carry on a conversation with them, but I’m not one of them.  Star Wars is officially just a “thing,” something that exists.   I cannot say with confidence that had you done the prequels well that I would be where I am, but things as they are, I know what got me here, and I’m glad it did.

You’re not entirely off the hook, especially after Indiana Jones 4, but I felt you should be given some recognition for inadvertently rescuing this deeply obsessed geek.  Once again, thank you.

Now quit making movies.

Five Non-Original Movies I Want to See Made

You’ve heard it all before, over and over again.

“Hollywood doesn’t have any new ideas!”

“It’s all the same stuff!”

“I liked Avatar better when it was called Dances With Wolves / Pocahontas / The Last Samurai / Fern Gully.”

“ANOTHER remake of a classic 80′s movie?  Why ruin that one, too?”

I tend to agree over all.  A modern take on a nostalgic television show is fun cinema; well-done movies based on characters once thought to be un-filmable are awesome; wiping away poorly-done franchises and starting anew is like a breath of fresh air; any one of those movies that are good are worth wanting to see a sequel from (when the story supports it).  But they can all get dramatically overdone.

It’s part of how “Hollywood” works.  The film industry isn’t first and foremost an artistic medium; it’s an industry–a business–that seeks to find customers the same way Amazon and Honda seek to find customers.  “What do people want?  Give them that!”  Sad, really, because unlike Amazon and Honda, movie producers aren’t very good at figuring out what people actually want.

Or maybe they are, and people are just idiots.

But where 20 years ago the idea of remaking a classic show was fun, and ten years ago the idea of a movie for every superhero or 80′s cartoon you could dream of was mind-blowing . . . it’s all gotten really old.  I’m mildly excited about the Avengers movie next year, and appreciate the way they’ve worked up to it, but it feels five years too late.  Rebooting Spider-Man is shameful.  Of all things, The Karate Kid did NOT need to be retold (I’d joke that Back to the Future is next, but I would not put that past them).  And why in the world couldn’t they let Pirates of the Carribean be a surprisingly decent movie without sequels?  Or FOUR movies?

I know that original ideas are risky in a business where a small film budget would feed an entire third-world country for a decade (think about that the next time you go to see a crappy romantic comedy), so I’m going to propose some films I’d like to see made based on other material that aren’t simply raping the same old corpses.  Please forgive my graphic imagery.  Let’s begin.

The Wizard of Oz

Blasphemy right off the bat, right?  You’re probably conjuring comparisons to the  new Willy Wonka movie, or Alice in Wonderland (both Burton films . . . hmm . . . okay, I declare that neither Johnny Depp nor Tim Burton are allowed within 100 feet of this movie).  But you’re forgetting about how amazing the new True Grit was, or how fun Ocean’s 11 is.  You’re also probably not thinking about how greats such as The Ten Commandments and Scarface are technically remakes, too.

But Wizard of Oz?  Judy Garland is as synonymous with Dorothy as Julie Andrews is with Mary Poppins, Stallone is with Rambo, Mark Hamill with Luke Skywalker, or *cough* Schwarzenegger is with Conan the Barbarian.  Yet I think this could be great, even though no matter how well it’s done, some people will act as if whoever the director is has tried to rewrite the Bible.  Actually, I think they’d be less concerned about the Bible.

How to do it:

They should add as little as possible to the story, and return to the book as the primary source.  Drop the songs, too.  I guess already the comparisons to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are opening up, but bare with me.
They should NOT make the story dark or gritty; nor should they leave it with a for-kids-only cheesy, cartoony air.  Make it a true family film–one the kids can enjoy but one mom and dad and teens and young adults and child-free advocates can all get through without rolling their eyes once.  In other words, don’t overdo it, but don’t be afraid that the little ones might get scared.  That’s life.

They should bring back parts like the four jumping across the river, and the Lion rushing his friends through the poppies.  Put the green glasses on the characters when they’re in the emerald city, and bring the magical hat back that controls the flying monkeys (and thus making the monkeys neutral at worst, not evil).  Include the porcelain village and the headbutting dudes, and the other parts not in the old movie.  Mention the four corners of Oz, discuss the surrounding desert.  The only things that should be added or changed are parts to transition better between scenes, as the book feels rather disjointed from chapter to chapter.  And in the end, it wasn’t all a dream.  Let Judy keep that plot change.
They should NOT add useless and boring subplots.  Like scenes of the family of the Wizard when he still lived in America, or cut-aways to the all-community search for Dorothy back in Kansas.  Stick with the original point of the story–if it’s too short and needs to be expanded (unlikely), then do that by fleshing out the four main characters.  Make sure it comes across, unlike in the old movie, that Dorothy’s three companions all had what they sought all along.  Don’t waste time on back stories of the munchkin village.

Most importantly–make NO inferences that Wicked is canon.  At all.  Have your own opinion of that book/play, but honestly I say that the whole “The bad guy’s actually misunderstood and the good guy is actually spoiled, arrogant, and manipulative” storyline is over-done and contrived.  Moving on.

They should cast an actual young girl in the role of Dorothy, instead of a teenager with a golden voice.  The Tin Woodsman (yes, you’d need to call him that so people can distance this film from the classic) would need to be a guy in a suit (but a really good mask, maybe CGI–no silver facepaint).  The Lion will likely be CGI, but the Scarecrow would probably work well as some kind of puppet.  With CGI when necessary.
They should NOT take the George Lucas approach and do everything on a blue soundstage and CGI even the munchkins.  They especially should not even toy with the Robert Zemeckis ping-pong-balls-on-quality-actors method. They should take the Peter Jackson approach and do everything as low-fi as possible unless it absolutely won’t work without more current technology and methods.  (But that’s not a Wizard of Oz thing, really, that’s an every special effects movie ever thing).  They also should not ignore how awful Aslan looks in the Narnia movies–so watch that.

Dragonlance: The Chronicles Trilogy

One of the biggest issues I’ve had with the types of “geek” movies that have come out non-stop for the last 10+ years is that they’re really only focused on material from a few genres.  Mostly superhero comics.  Beyond that, 80′s Saturday morning nostalgia–most of which, let’s be honest–would work well as a superhero comic (and many have).  But there’s one genuine nerd genre that’s almost completely ignored:

Fantasy.

It was my main one from middle school all through high school, too.  “But they made Lord of the Rings, Narnia, and now they’re making The Hobbit!” you say.  Oh, absolutely.  And they’re great (mostly).  But LOTR and Narnia are like the Batman and Superman of Fantasy.  They’re the big names, the genre definers.  What I want now are the Iron Mans, the Green Lanterns, the Watchmen.  Those lesser-known-by-the-general-masses-but-still-completely-awesome stories.

Also, there’s something that both Tolkien and Lewis don’t have nearly enough of–

Freaking Dragons

Dragons are what any sane geek loves most about the Fantasy genre.  Only Tolkien and Lewis can get away with such a low dragon-to-fantasy ratio.

Don’t–I repeat DO NOT–start thinking about crap like that Dungeons & Dragons movie from a decade ago, and don’t immediately think of Dragonheart, either (though you are allowed to say, “I am the last one!” to your heart’s content).  Where the former is so baffling-ly bad you question the IQ of those behind it, the latter is FIFTEEN YEARS OLD.  It out-dates Titanic.  A guy I had an adult conversation with last week was finishing up kindergarten then.  I guess there was Reign of Fire, too . . . but that movie was so forgettable that I added this sentence in a week after finishing this post.  With as far as special effects technology has come since 1996, I feel anyone who likes an exciting movie should start lobbying for more dragons.  And what better place to start than Dragonlance?  It’s still only a slight step into obscurity from LOTR, heavily story- and character-based, and lots of great visual and action potential.

They should grow a pair and do it as three movies with a full-scale production and huge budget with the best special effects they can muster.
They should NOT accept CGI that looks like it belongs in the lava scene from Aladdin.

They should focus on story and character.
They should NOT  let the special effects take over.  What makes a great movie great and worth watching over again is story and good characters.  It’s why Spider-Man 2 was great and memorable, where Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer was not.  Dragonlance has those things, but I can see them being looked over far to easily in favor of cheap thrills.

They should make a tasteful trailer that hints at story and teases with known, key scenes.
They should NOT do that crap with thumping dance music and quick-fade cuts to a heartbeat and shots of Goldmoon’s inevitable skimpy outfit.

They should NOT cast a woman as Tasslehoff.

They should move quickly lest we hungry fans be bombarded with more crap like this or this.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

This is where I shift from desperate movie and geek culture fan to “stuff that Braden would really just like to see.”

Over my most recent bout of unemployment, I took full advantage of living one block from a library branch and read a ton of stuff.  One book I read was Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a fact that still baffles me not only because I read the whole thing but because it’s currently my favorite novel.  The thing is though, there’s never been a large-scale production film made on it since 1927.  There’s been some independent films and a made-for-TV movie back in 1987, but nothing that’s as memorable as a movie based on this book should be.

It would be a pretty daring feat to make this movie, though.  Being a 160-year-old story based around a controversial social structure (to put it lightly), it’s been twisted and abused and deformed by all sides involved.  Many black Americans have rejected it because of the tired stereotypes it started, and because of the softening and twisting to the characters in “popular culture” done since the end of the Reformation.  Many white Americans have rejected it because they refuse to believe slavery was ever as bad as the book actually insists it was.  Others avoid it at all costs because they either find it too controversial, or they were forced to read it in high school and are still bitter.

I’ve only seen small clips of two of the movies made (the 1927 silent film and the 1976 independent film, both of which you can find in their entirety on YouTube), and then I’ve read the Wikipedia section on the 1987 movie, and while the 1987 one seems to be far more accurate, the makers of that film bragged about leaving out scenes like when Elisa skips across the ice on the Ohio River.  Why would you leave that out?

They should tell the story as it was meant to be told, exactly as it’s told in the book, with the message it’s had for 160 years.
They should NOT water it down to appease those that still try to suggest that slavery wasn’t all that bad.  Nor should they toss in parallels to civil rights or gay rights or modern social agendas.  Nor should they alter any characters to avoid “stereotyping” black or southern Americans, since those stereotypes were set after (and because of) this story.

They should leave in every exciting scene, and every emotional scene, and every challenging scene.  Let audiences experience a STORY and not just a message, yet not walk away forgetting the impact this story had on America.

Maybe it’s idealistic, but I see a great production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin being a wonderful exercise in racial unity between blacks and whites.  Maybe that’s silly.  Maybe.

Final Fantasy VI

Something that everyone knows has never been done well is the video game movie.  The big problem with them is that the source material doesn’t lend well to interesting movies.  Games are mostly about action or thinking about strategy in some fashion, and it’s hard to get that to translate well to film.  And in the event that there IS a story to tell, rest assured that some arrogant Hollywood exec is going to screw it up.  So why do I wish for this one?

The story of Final Fantasy VI (originally renamed Final Fantasy III for its American release) is one of my favorite stories of all time.  It’s very Star Wars-esque with hints of Jason Bourne and even Batman . . . but really that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  There’s so much there.  The whole plot taken out of the hunting for treasure chests, bonus side quests, level grinding, and long boss fights could fill an (interesting) two-and-a-half hour movie easily.  I’d bet you actually would have to do two films.

Hey, if The Hobbit can do it, so can Final Fantasy VI.

There’s so much character development that would need to be done it’s insane . . . because you could only reduce Umaro, Gogo, and Mog to bit parts or cameos.  Strago could play a smaller part, as could Gau, but Relm is important as (spoiler alert) it would definitely need to be revealed that Shadow is her father and we would need to care.  But Cyan and Setzer have very moving stories that need full attention.  Then you have the most important ones: Locke, Terra, Edgar, Sabin, and Celeste.  They carry the biggest part of the plot.  But hey, I’ve said before that character carries a good movie, and this would need that.

They’d just need to be careful that Kefka isn’t an alternate version of The Joker.  That could be very easy to mess up.

The biggest problem, honestly, would be what to name it.  You couldn’t reasonably call it Final Fantasy VI.  There’s no 1-5, and as much as I love FFI, FFIV, and FFV, and enjoy FFII and FFIII, I don’t want to sit through movies based on those just to get to this one.

Wow.  The more I think about this, the more I think it would absolutely work.  The writers don’t have to fill in a story to make up for the loss of all the gameplay time.  The characters are deep and moving.  The plot is interesting and engaging.

I call dibs!

A Three-and-a-Half Hour Biopic on Chicago

Haha!  I thought of this originally as a joke, but of course now I think it’s awesome.  Rock/Music biopics don’t typically fail, critically or commercially, but they can be awkward and jumpy.  I think, first of all, we all need to plan to spend a large portion of our afternoon at the theater when going to see a rock biopic of any nature.

That said, I’m willing to bet one could make a really awesome movie based on Chicago, but for a band with a nearly-45-year history, and just over 20 of it really interesting, you need to pick a smaller section to focus on.  I think it would be best to focus on the span from just before their formation in 1967 to right when they make it back on top of the charts again in 1982 with the release of Chicago 16.   It’s perfect.   You’ve got humble beginnings, existing for music, pop chart success, struggles with pop chart success, sacrificing art for pop chart success, climaxing at the accidental suicide of guitarist Terry Kath, falling out of favor with the music-listening public, and then climbing back on top.  Sure, there’s another 8 years, at minimum, that’s interesting to tell, but you’ve got to draw the line somewhere.  And that gives it a happy ending–but you could do the last scene and last shots at a huge, sold-out arena as they play “Hard to Say I’m Sorry/Get Away,” and their faces are filled with an unmistakable mix of relief and joy, plus an uneasy caution.

I say the best way to do the music is to take the Walk the Line route, and let the actors sing the parts.  The trickier part is getting them to play the instruments . . . you can’t fake musical mastery like all those guys had/have.  Well, no mountain worth climbing is easy.

. . . man, that’s a good idea.

Dibs again!

How Being Lazy Got Me Where I Am Today

Five years ago today I set out on my life’s second-greatest adventure.  The first is getting married, in case you didn’t figure that out on your own.  But on August 2, 2006, I left my college town and home of four years, Carbondale, Illinois, for Seattle, Washington.

Ahh, home. Well--"home" is actually about seven miles back and to the left of where this photo was taken. But I'm sure you knew what I meant.

It’s a pretty big deal to me that I’m here at all.  I could bore you for a long time and discuss how there was a time when I had so much uncertainty about my future that I was kind of afraid I’d end up in some small Illinois town for the rest of my life.  (No hate if that’s where you are and prefer it–it’s just that I really didn’t).  But that wasn’t what God had for me–turns out I just had to listen to him and take some risks.

What’s interesting is how I ended up being here in the first place.  I sometimes wonder if there were a single, seemingly trivial event or action in my past that set me on the path to not only moving to Seattle, but getting married to my wife.  For a while I thought it might have been if I’d not heard punk rock in the summer of 1995 . . . but I might have heard it and loved it at a later time.  Or maybe if I’d gotten a car other than my Mazda 626 in January 2002 . . . but who knows what car I would have ended up with otherwise?  It all seems like I was headed this way no matter what–but the other day a memory struck me and I realized that my entire present hinged on a single moment of laziness and apathy over thirteen years ago.

Early in the summer 1998 I was at Lincoln Land Community College taking a series of placement tests so I could get signed up for classes.  I wrote an essay and did some basic math and answered some science questions and probably some on history.  The last test I had to do was algebra.  Well, I was kind of tired of taking tests, you see.  I had an unlimited amount of time for each question presented to me by the computer, and I had the option to re-do any question before completing the test, and I may have even been told if I got an answer right or wrong when I submitted it.  The point is that this should have been an easy test for anyone that knows how to do algebra (which I did).  But I was bored and feeling lazy and wanted to get home to probably play video games or something, so I just selected random answers for the last two-thirds of the questions.  I got most, if not all, of those wrong.

The result of this act of impatience and laziness was monumental.

I was given a class schedule of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., no breaks.  I was placed in a zero-credit math class due to my performance on that assessment test.  The math class was at 11.  In this math class, I became better acquainted with a guy named  Aaron, who was the saxophone player in a local, Christian ska band.  Within a week or two, I also met a guy nicknamed “Skippy,” who I got to know that semester as well.

Well Aaron asked Skippy and I if we wanted to play in a swing band he was trying to start up.  Skip also played saxophone, and trombone was my primary instrument at the time.  We both said yes.  By the end of that semester, the band we formed had dissolved but a strong friendship between Skip and myself had formed–so strong that my circle of friends had almost completely changed by that point from what it was the previous summer (high school friends, mostly) to people I met through Skip or people I met at college, along with Skip. Point being, my social life, interests, and activities after that semester would be shaped because I was friends with him.

Around nine or ten months after that band fell apart, Skip borrowed a bass guitar from a mutual friend and started playing.  He called me on his first night with it and said, “We’re starting a punk band.”  I had been playing a little bit of guitar for a few months and was sure I could handle power chords in punk songs, so I claimed guitar and vocals for myself, and then mentioned another friend of mine to Skip that played guitar that could join us (named Aaron, but not the Aaron from before).   The three of us started the band the fall of 1999, had a drummer by early 2000, and the band came apart early 2001.  But the four of us in the group were still good friends.

So good, in fact, that Aaron and Skip simultaneously decided to attend Southern Illinois University at Carbondale starting the spring semester of 2002, and they made sure they were roommates.  When the fall semester of 2002 came around, it was my time to move on to a University.  I had picked SIUC precisely because Aaron and Skip were already going there.  I originally wanted to go any place OTHER than SIUC.  Carbondale is next to Murphysboro, which is where my dad’s entire family lives.  Sure, I love all of them, but I originally wanted to attend school in a place I wasn’t familiar with and had no connections to.  To start fresh.  However, being the social person I am, of course I followed friends when that opportunity presented itself.  And almost as if to secure my decision, I had some serious money-for-school problems arise by the summer of 2002, so it was a bonus that I had grandparents and extended family that lived in the area.  But the decision to attend SIUC began with my friends going there, and the fact that I still got to go despite money issues was secured by the fact that I had family in the area.

Well, the fall semester started and–skipping the gory details–my friendships with Aaron and Skip didn’t survive the first few weeks of school.  It was a tumultuous four months with lots of uncertainty, but by the start of 2003′s spring semester, I was fully involved with a local church in Carbondale now called “The Vine.”

By the next fall semester (2003, still), I had met a pretty young lady at my church named Dona, and we started becoming friends.  Right about the same time, the lead pastor of The Vine announced he felt led by God to start a new church in Seattle.  By the following summer, he and a large team of people from our church moved to the Pacific Northwest.  Not quite a year-and-a-half later, I felt strong conviction from God to move to Seattle, too, and be part of that church.  As I said before, I moved on August 2, 2006 and arrived 2 days later.

Nearly eleven months later, under almost entirely independent circumstances, Dona also moved to Seattle.  We were engaged just over a year later and married two-and-a-half months after that.

So there you have it.  I am married to the woman of my dreams and live in Seattle all because I was lazy one summer day at a community college and didn’t feel like finishing an un-timed test.  Had I finished that test honestly, I guarantee I would have passed it.  I knew algebra well enough to get most of them right, and those placement tests weren’t designed to be extremely harsh.  Therefore I wouldn’t have had any reason to get to know (the first) Aaron any better, and wouldn’t have met Skippy under the same circumstances, if at all, and wouldn’t have been close enough to Skip to be the first person he called when he wanted to start a band.  Therefore Skip and (the second) Aaron would very likely not have met and wouldn’t have been roommates at SIU, an arrangement that provided encouragement for me to follow them there.  Had I not ended up in Carbondale, I would have not started attending Vine, thus not being around for, knowing of, or even caring about the church plant in Seattle.  And I submit to be the most important: I would I have met my wife.  Funny how that works.

Oh, sure, you could argue that all of that stuff would  have happened one way or another because it was God’s plan, and I would agree . . . but it’s fun to look at it this way, and to make a case about laziness having a positive impact on someone’s life.

The Guilt or Innocence of Joseph Brooks

A couple months ago, a guy named Joseph Brooks–known best as the person who wrote the award-winning song (and panned movie of the same name) “You Light Up My Life” in the 1970′s–committed suicide by putting a bag over his head and pumping helium into said bag.  He left a note, but as of me writing this the contents were not made public (I’d like to imagine, due to the use of helium in his death, that the type point in the note is reeeeeeeeeeeally small, or at least all concentrated on the top fourth of the page).

A twist comes in the story when it is revealed that Brooks was awaiting trial on charges of rape and molestation of over a dozen women, whom he allegedly lured to his apartment with an alleged promise of an acting audition and allegedly gave the women he allegedly brought home an alleged drink allegedly laced with an alleged drug so he could allegedly assault them in their alleged compromised state.

I’ve used the term “alleged” liberally because the point of this post is we do not know if he did it or not.  The only people still alive that know beyond any shadow of a doubt are the women behind the charges.  That’s it.  You don’t know.  I don’t know.  You didn’t know him.  I didn’t know him.  You likely didn’t even know or care that he existed at all.  I didn’t.

So what’s my point?  Let’s take a look at some of the reader comments  from the news article in which I learned about Mr. Brooks, his demise, and his alleged crimes:

“Dude was a molester and a rapist, sorry, I don’t feel so bad.”

“At least his victims won’t have to be put through court and dealing with a defense attorney trying to put the blame on them. Peace to the victims…”

“As a victim of rape by a man who also stalked me relentlessly . . . there was a time in my life when I was in constant fear. as it turned out this man later committed suicide as well, and it was most likely as a result of the fact that it was uncovered shortly beforehand that he had molested and raped dozens of others. i must admit, when he died I felt a measure of relief. now, at least these women need not feel fear any longer.”

“I prefer suicide for this guy rather than paying for his stay in prison.”

“Sex with this dude? EEEWWWWW…….pay a hooker already and don’t molest innocent women – that’s why they make $100 an hour! (I’d charge more.) Sorry for his family anyway, but sounds like the apple didn’t fall far from the tree [referencing the unrelated murder charges against his son]- the fewer the rapists in the world, the better. Still a sad thing.”

“Seriously…those charges sound seriously creepy. And the fact that the son is also charged with murder is also disturbing. Makes you wonder about the family lifestyle.”

When I protested in replies to one of the above commenters, “he plead ‘not guilty’ and he was still awaiting trial, which means nothing had been proven yet,” I was told that “the suicide itself is a really big tip-off that he felt he had done something wrong…”

Now let’s compound the fact that the next morning as I drove my wife to work, the radio show I listen to brought this story up and they and every caller jumped all over how horrible of a person he must have been and how disgusting he was and how disturbing it is that he wrote such a well-loved love song to which people have danced at their weddings and proms.

I’m not blind, mind you.  I get where the assumption comes from that he’s shown his guilt by way of his actions, but I’m also smart enough to realize that may not be the case, and civilized enough to not rest on either assumption because I know that I don’t know.

Joseph had another factor working against him, which was alluded to in one of the comments–his appearance.

He fits our mental image of “creepy molester,” doesn’t he?

“Hey, everyone–this guy here?  He committed suicide.  He was also charged with multiple rapes.  Okay, see ya later!”

It’s so easy to draw those lines ourselves.  I DO want to cast another angry glare at the reporter who chose THIS photo to go with the article.  You know how Zsa Zsa Gabor’s been in and out of the news due to health problems and that amputated leg?  They usually run photos like this for those:

Except that this is closer to what she looks like today:

Now I could drone on forever about the dishonesty in the media over a wide variety of topics and methods, but that’s not the ultimate point here.  I just want to point out that they chose the picture you see up there to be the only image that we’re likely to ever see of that guy to accompany a story about his suicide, oh and by the way he was charged with rape.  Except a simple Google search will show you that there were plenty of other options for that photo.  It’s safe I promise.

They could have taken the “Zsa Zsa Approach,” as I will choose to call it:

Or they could have taken something a bit more recent that doesn’t scream “hide your children”:

So we not only have our default humanity that causes us to assume that this guy was as bad as anyone could have said he was, but we have those responsible for telling us about it in the first place trying to create a reaction through their layout of the story.

By the time this publishes, it could have come out (as a bottom-of-the-page, buried article, no doubt) that his suicide note included a full confession to his alleged crimes.  Even if that were the case, that doesn’t excuse anyone for concluding his guilt based on an article combining the story of his death plus his charges plus a creepy photo.

What still upsets me about all this is that there are some people who won’t be able to grasp the logic here–especially if it can be proven, postmortem, that he was guilty.  Americans are fed the whole “innocent until proven guilty” line in our grade school classes as we learn about the “glory” that is the United States, but are never really taught what it means.  Let me explain.

It means that until a trial is over and the accused is shown to be guilty, the state, the authorities, the court, the jury, the media, and–as an extension and display of decency–the public should all assume that said accused is NOT guilty.  Now, if you’re the kind of person who wouldn’t have thought twice to leave a comment like the ones I listed above, this next part might be a little hard to follow:  assuming innocence at that stage does NOT mean that we therefore assume that those who made the accusations are liars, either.  It means no bias.  The only persons that are reasonably allowed to assume either the guilt of the accused or the dishonesty of the accusers are those personally involved.  To have connection to it outside of that, yet assume guilt (or lying) is no different than believing the stories about the awkward girl that sat by herself in the cafeteria in 7th grade.

You can argue with me, as at least one person has, that none of this should really matter because I nor anyone I know is involved with the death or charges of Joseph Brooks.  To that, I say (and conclude with) if anyone you know and love was accused of a horrific crime and a large portion of the public happily believed in their guilt (not to mention the media pulling their little sly tricks to nudge opinions in a certain direction), you would be happy to have someone you didn’t know call those kinds of people out.  I certainly would.

[Note from Braden: I wrote this well before the whole Casey Anthony Verdict fiasco.  Though the trial was going on at the time, I knew nothing about it except faces from tabloids in the line at Safeway.  But my perspective on this topic is the same for both stories.  Sure, by all accounts I've seen, Anthony looks guilty as sin.  But I know what the media is saying, which is playing to popular opinion, and the fact is that I wasn't there and the jury felt that, based on the evidence, Casey must be found innocent.  If we're going to be civilized about this and not reactionary and emotional, we must accept that Casey was not found guilty--our own opinions are our own opinions, but those more involved said she has to go free.  At this juncture, that's all we can do.]

Best and Worst Rogues Galleries #1

I know a few things about comic books.  I’m not a huge, huge fan of the medium anymore, and I’ve not followed any titles for going on 20 years now . . . but I view superheroes as, for the most part, our modern folklore and am fascinated by them and their stories and their origins, both real and fictional.  Since I also have a mind wired for trivia, I manage to pick things up like a magnet whether I want to or not when it comes to this subject area.  There’s lots of great fields to explore within the world of comic book superheroes, lots of different ways to rank them and compare them.  A great area of discussion is the various rogues galleries, or groups of villains, that belong to a particular hero character.  As we’ll see, some almost overshadow the hero themselves, and some are pathetically weak, especially considering to whom they belong.  This is going to be the first of several posts over the next few months (they won’t all be in a row, though), and we’re going to start at the top of the list.

BEST ROGUE GALLERY:

BATMAN

This is an easy choice.  If it wasn’t for the brilliance of 2005′s Batman Begins, I would say that nearly all of his villains overshadow him.  I now don’t think that at all–I think he still dominates.  I think Batman would be just as great without such an awesome rogue gallery BECAUSE he’s so good on his own.  But, in the end that’s a moot point, because his villains rock.  Let’s look at the some of strongest ones vs. some of the weakest ones to have a sense of how even the weak ones are great.

TOP VILLAINS:

The Joker.  The Joker not only gets best Batman villain, but he’s a contender for the best villain of all time, period.  I’d say he’s taking on Darth Vader, Sephiroth, and Ben Linus for that spot (I’d throw Kefka in there, too, but they’re so similar).  He’s beyond dark, completely psychotic, completely hilarious, and, in Heath Ledger’s masterful portrayal, a seething anarchist.  He’s in an endless dance with the Caped Crusader, only seeking to create chaos among the order that the other seeks to establish.  They’re yin and yang, if I may use the imagery.  No hero and villain go together better, I would say.  I know that early on, Chris Nolan didn’t want to do the Joker for the second of his movies, and that the ending to Begins was only a nod . . . but he realized you can’t do Batman and not do the Joker.  It’s like Superman without Lex or He-Man without Skeletor, except more so.

Two-Face.  On the subject of the Nolan movies again, I have such high praise for how Two-Face was done in The Dark Knight, but also such a gripe that he’s not coming back . . . because if any Batman baddie can rival the Joker, it is Two-Face.  Where the Joker works great with Batman because of how well they contrast, Two-Face works so well because of the personal connection the characters have.  I’ve recently read the graphic novels The Long Halloween and Dark Victory (which both very obviously influenced the story of The Dark Knight) and they deal in large part with the story of Harvey Dent becoming Two-Face and, by connection, Batman’s inner turmoil of seeing his friend lose all the good that was in him and become one of his greatest enemies.  Two-Face easily takes command of the other Arkham Asylum freaks when he has the need because, being a former D.A., he has a greater understanding of them than some crime boss or any Joe off the street.  Plus his motivation is so well defined, and his confusion and turmoil is so obvious.  He’s a completely engaging character on his own, and when he gets pitted against another interesting one like Batman, it’s spectacular.

Catwoman.  Four months ago I would not have picked Catwoman for a best Batman villain.  My familiarity with the character was based out of TV and movie portrayals of her, where she’s a bit player, shows up when it’s convenient for the plot like any other villain, or all the focus gets placed on the outfit.  (Good grief, people, Batman Returns is nearly 20 years old now and it wasn’t even that good to begin with.  Can we let the Michelle Pfeiffer thing go?  Oh, and while we’re on the subject, I say that all of Catwoman’s various comic book outfits are ridiculous, too.)  But, as I’ve said, I’ve read a few graphic novels lately and all of them continue a thread with her that I’ve been fully unaware of–she and Batman have a very interesting “thing” going on.  Oh sure, I knew that Batman/Catwoman and Bruce Wayne/Selina Kyle were something of an item here and there, but in the handful of graphic novels I’ve read, they’re not A thing, but they are THE thing.  Like almost to the intensity of Superman and Lois Lane, but MUCH more interesting.  She is a cat burglar (yes, really) that doesn’t see such a clear line between right and wrong as Batman sees it.  She’s not an evil despicable person, but she IS out for herself primarily.  At the same time though, she cares about and likes Batman, and has a very intriguing hot-and-cold relationship with him.  All of that goes on at the same time as Selina Kyle and Bruce Wayne develop a thing separately.  Most of the time, from what I’ve read, they do not know who the other is.  Sometimes I get the impression that he knows, but Selina almost NEVER knows that Bruce is Batman.  When this is just an issue or two (or a TV episode, or a single, lack-luster movie), it’s not that interesting.  But when you begin to understand that she is a seriously significant person to Batman on a long-term scale, it makes their relationship a very strong pillar around which to build a larger story.  And knowing that actually gets me excited that Catwoman will be in the next movie, whereas when I first heard it my heart sank a little.  Chris Nolan gets Batman, and if you’ve read some of the major Batman graphic novels, you know he adheres to their themes very closely, so I’m very excited to see how she gets played out on screen.
BOTTOM VILLAINS:

Even Batman’s not flawless, and for all the great baddies he’s got, there are a few that just baffle me.  Yet with that said, I was unable to find a single Batman villain that was completely worthless and stupid (excepting for some of the ones who existed only for the 60′s TV series, like Bookworm or King Tut), so it is not the characters alone that baffle me, but instead what surrounds them and brings them to this fictional universe . . .

The Mad Hatter.  I think what gets me the most about the Mad Hatter is that he’s not that clever of a character.  His usage has been great many times–he shows up often in the graphic novels I’ve read, and I enjoyed his episodes in the old animated series–but c’mon.  The Mad Hatter?  The first time I heard of him, in the aforementioned animated series, my thought was, “Seriously?  Who’s the villain tomorrow?  The Ghost of Christmas Past?  Or maybe the Wicked Witch of the West?”  The problem, as I see it, is that there’s no real twist on the source material.  He’s just lifted right out of  Alice in Wonderland and given a Gotham City identity.  And that’s boring.  It’s even more confusing when you consider his “trick” is mind control.  . . . why?  What does Lewis Carroll’s “Hatter” who waxes crazy with the March Hare and drinks tea all day have to do with mind control?  It’s very arbitrary in my opinion.

Jason Todd.  I love, LOVE the drama added to the Batman mythology surrounding the death of Robin #2, Jason Todd.  There’s a gritty realism and an undeniable darkness to it that is what Batman is all about.  And then they brought him back to life.  As a villain.  That, in and of itself, is one of the things that makes comic book story lines completely worthless over the long haul–dead characters should stay dead.  It negates not only the added depth to Batman, but–as with every other comics title guilty of this–it also removes the significance of any other character death in the story.  After Jason comes back to life (and let us not forget all the images of Batman carrying his crushed, bloody, lifeless body), we should honestly all expect Thomas and Martha Wayne to be alive somehow, too.  I mean, why not?

Clayface.  Like the Mad Hatter, there have been a number of great ways to use Clayface for a storyline, but one of the things that has always made me uneasy about him is how he is 100% impossible in reality.  One thing I’ve always liked about Batman, and which has become a cornerstone in the spectacular Nolan films, is that everyone and everything seems like they could be the result of, at the most, an exaggerated folk tale.  Killer Croc could have been a psycho with a horrible skin disease and a taste for body modification.  Poison Ivy could have been a crazy botanist with some slight-of-hand skills making it seem like she could control plants.  The acid-scarred Two-Face (as opposed to the burned version in The Dark Knight) is completely probable.  Everything is easy to find some grounding in reality.  Clayface is a walking heap of mud that can transform into anything he wants.  Sure, there’s interesting stories with him, but his essence betrays the faux-real-worldism of all the Batman mythology.

But maybe that’s just me.  I invite arguments and debates in the comments.