Nitpick of the Nerds: Spoiler Edition

"This movie sucked. There's no way you could warp from Earth to Kronos that quickly." An actual comment on Star Trek Into Darkness.

I saw the movie last night and thought it totally worked, but then I also loved the first one. Curious, I read a few of the more negative reviews. Usually, even if I love something, I can see the point in the reviews. But these just seemed, well... sloppy. As if the reviewers were primed to hate it and willfully ignored things that actually WERE explained, and DID make sense. But look, I totally get why nerds would hate the movie. If they went in already pissed off, then what happens in this movie only amplifies that anger.

I just don't know why, after they hated the first one, they would see this one.

OH WAIT. YES I DO.

Because nerd-raging against the machine (i.e., people who get to play in the universe you want to play in) is much more popular than loving a thing. Acting like an asshole film snob (there are some of these and maybe they should stop seeing summer movies) makes you much cooler than loving a thing. Because there is nothing LESS cool than loving a thing. Unless you listen to Wil Wheaton on the subject.

Hating something isn't inspiring. It's depressing. I want to love everything I see and if I think I'm going to hate something, I won't see it. I realize not everyone feels this way, but come ON, children. This is getting ridiculous. But I also won't love something just to love it. It has to earn that. I have very personal reasons for hoping Star Trek Into Darkness was great... reasons that I will not go into. But it meant a lot. And as the movie went on, I was just so RELIEVED that I didn't have to be depressed, and could instead be inspired and entertained. Yes, INSPIRED. I know my film snob friends will be horrified at that (if they read nerd blogs, which they don't, so I should be okay). I'm supposed to dismiss summer movies as fun movies for children, mild diversions until the next Drive is released.

(do not get me started on that guy)

My nerd friends (not all of them) will be horrified that I allow JJ Abrams to live, somehow, and am not aligned on the side of Right when it comes to gloat-hating this movie. Guys, I love you, but devoting this much energy and time to hate means you aren't getting inspired. And I want you to be inspired. You NEED to be. I think the film snobs may be a lost cause at this point because they are so Above everything. But the unbridled enthusiasm of my nerd friends... it sucks to see them so pissed. LOVE something, you guys. PLEASE.

If the movie legitimately didn't work for you (as in: You haven't just been angry about this since 2009), then I get the nitpicking. Because when you're not immersed in a movie, all you can think about is what doesn't work (hi, Great and Powerful Oz). If you ARE immersed in a movie, then it's pretty tough for a nitpick to bring you out of that. At least it is for me. But if you go in determined NOT to allow yourself to be immersed, then your nitpicks are invalid, Sir.

For me, it starts with the characters. They are flawed. They make mistakes. Maybe this isn't the original series way (although violating the prime directive to a successful outcome is kind of the point). Kirk and Spock did dumb shit. They HAD to, or else who gives a shit? Nobody wants to watch a character who just always does the right things and is thoroughly unimpeachable. I want to watch characters who struggle to do the right thing. That's what I got with this movie.

What I loved about the Kirk of the first film (which I said at the time) is that he's a character born in death. He spends a lot of time testing death, but he can never quite take that last fatal step. He's pretty self-hating, until Pike convinces him to join Starfleet. Is he promoted too quickly to captain? HELL yes. WHICH IS THE POINT. In the first film, Spock's Achilles heel (if Vulcans have them - nerds, help me out with Vulcan physiology!) is his love for his mother. He loses her and he's compromised. But he still doesn't truly deal with that loss. Kirk, though, he hasn't lost anyone that important to him. He never knew his father, and the guy clearly had a legend built up around him. For Kirk, his father was untouchable. Impossible to know.

In this film, Kirk loses a father in Pike, the man who was truly a mentor to him. Who believed in him. Kirk faces death and it sends him on a mission of vengeance. Like Spock does to Kirk in the first film, Kirk does (or tries to do - superstrength!) to Khan in this film. Literally beat the pain and fury out of him. Kirk and Spock have different emotional trajectories from the beginning. Kirk is going to save Spock, but Spock doesn't want him to, and he doesn't understand why Uhura is so pissed off about his decision. But by the end of the film, Kirk has come full circle with death. The ONLY thing that matters, after everything else is stripped away, is saving his crew. Without even a moment's hesitation, he kills himself to save the ship and his crew. His family. And he finally admits, to Spock, that he's scared. Which is huge for a Kirk who knows that death is inevitable. Then Spock does what he would never have done at the beginning of the movie -- he takes up Kirk's mantle of revenge and goes after Khan. For Kirk. He unleashes his human half without hesitating... just like Kirk did. By the end, Kirk and Spock both understand where the other is coming from, and that makes them closer. But it doesn't mean they are going to agree on everything. They haven't become the same person. They simply each have a new understanding and empathy.

With regards to the dumb shit Kirk does in this movie, he saves his friend at the expense of regulation, and then he lies about it. He thinks he knows what's right. He's cocky. He's right on a human level, and so very wrong on a Starfleet level. He also gets rightfully busted down in rank. Pushing Kirk into the captain's chair is as much Starfleet's fault as it is his. Kirk has, so far, been super lucky to survive all of this. He isn't quite as lucky by the end of the film, and it's what leads him there that's fascinating.

Kirk's almost scared into following orders, mostly because taking those missiles and obliterating Khan conveniently fits in with his thirst for revenge. Still, he's following the orders that work for him. A Kirk who blindly follows orders, though, is just as bad as a Kirk who does what he wants. Scotty quitting over the missiles is mystifying to Kirk, and this is something he understands by the end. He says to Spock, "I don't know what to do." Which is such a great moment for him. So he goes back to what he knows, and what he's learned from Spock -- Khan needs to be punished, within the regulations of Starfleet. But Kirk going to get Khan totally fucks Marcus, and then all hell breaks loose. Then, it's about Kirk following orders from a bad guy, or looking deep inside himself -- trusting himself and his training -- to follow the right regulations. Which is what he ends up doing, and it costs him his life.

Some of the critics are absolutely livid about the Wrath of Khan-ness of this story, with the alternate reality switch where it's Kirk who sacrifices himself and Spock who gets to yell "KHAAAAAAN!!" Which is something I absolutely adored. "Stupid writers, not even able to come up with a new idea." I understand that sentiment on a certain level, but I also vehemently disagree with it. Kirk's death in this film is just as earned as Spock's in WoK. And neither was permanently dead, either. I loved seeing the character switch. That exploration made it different to me, and also relevant.

The elegance of the alternate reality plot points really worked for me. And one thing I always love about JJ Abrams is his theme of family, which was so important on Lost, Fringe and Alias, too. Khan snookers Kirk here because of the way he talks about his family and what he's willing to do for them, the rage at Marcus and the lengths he goes to to free them. Khan's a fucking asshole, and he quickly turns on Kirk, but it's still in service of his primary goal... which is also Kirk's primary goal. The way he goes after Nero in the first film is very different than the way he goes after Khan here. Although Nero killed his father, it's a father Kirk didn't know. Pike is the father he knew. This resonates for Spock, too, who is with Pike when he dies, and then with Kirk. And I don't care how Vulcan you are, the human half of you is affected by death.


I could go on, but let's stop there.

So I loved this movie. I can't wait to see it again. And I will continue to go into every movie I see hoping it's great. I hope the nerds will, too.

Racing Into Irrelevance

Today, a soulless corporation announced the date they would finally close a formerly beloved sports institution. Hollywood Park officially closes forever on December 22, which also happens to be the day after my birthday, which mean I'll have to spend my fucking birthday experiencing the death rattle of the birthplace of the Breeders Cup. So fuck you very much for THAT, Bay Meadows Land Company.

On their website, which features cheerful white folks gamboling through pseudo Mediterranean apartment neighborhoods, their tagline is "life in motion." Apparently, that doesn't apply to history, because history is stagnant and not in motion. The only thing that can be in motion is a fucking land deal, amirite?? They claim to be all about sustainability (which big company doesn't include this soporific). Ironically, they were sued by the environmental preservationist group Friends of Bay Meadows, hoping to stop the company from bulldozing Bay Meadows racetrack. Naturally, the group couldn't financially compete with the big horrible company. Big Horrible Company - 1, Human Beings - 0.

Bay Meadows was founded in 1934. Land developers couldn't give less of a shit about anything that happened before they stepped onto their first pile of money. To wit:

Bay Meadows in 2008.
 

Bay Meadows in 2009.


As for what's happening now? Funny you should ask. This thing is going absolutely nowhere.

Being a city planner must be the fucking easiest job in the world. Just wait until yet another land development company wants to tear down some history and approve it. We're no longer in the Levittown years, or even in the Celebration era. Just shit out some condo complex that is too expensive for regular people to afford. Because in the end, it doesn't matter if the place is occupied. Everyone, including the city, gets their money.

Hollywood Park is a shithole. Filthy, shabby, weirdly redesigned years ago to basically screw over the general admission folk. So the BMLC could go, "Hey look, nobody's coming, it's a piece of crap, let us tear it down and build something useful." Because Inglewood needs an apartment version of the Bellagio and a Whole Foods. Gentle readers, have you ever BEEN to Inglewood? Nobody wants to live there. Not anymore. It's no longer the middle-class place it was decades ago. Basically, they created a self-fulfilling prophecy. They made the racetrack suffer. They made the community suffer. Hell, it's not too far-fetched to imagine that these assholes will be the beginning of the end for California racing altogether.

But before this land company bought it and fucked it with no regards for anyone but their bank accounts, Hollywood Park was something. It was founded in 1938, and on its board were such luminaries as Jack and Harry Warner, Al Jolson, Raoul Walsh, Mervyn Leroy, Joan Blondell (COME ON, JOAN FUCKING BLONDELL), Ronald Coleman, Walt Disney, Bing Crosby, Sam Goldwyn, Ralph Bellamy, Irene Dunne, Darryl Zanuck... the list goes on. The first Breeders Cup was held there in 1984.

And the horses...! Seabiscuit won the inaugural Hollywood Gold Cup. Citation became the first horse to win over a million dollars in the 1951 Gold Cup, and Affirmed became the first to win over two million dollars in the 1979 Gold Cup. The great John Henry passed four million in earnings by winning the 1983 Hollywood Turf Cup. Hollywood Park saw such great mares as Convenience, Typecast, Chris Evert and Miss Musket.

But most recently, of course, Hollywood Park was the home of Zenyatta throughout her racing life. Crowds don't show up to Hollywood Park, thanks to the fact that the BMLC has made humans feel unwelcome. But when Zenyatta went in search of her record-breaking 17th win, the people came, elevating the shabby, depressing grandstand and filling it with something the old place hadn't seen in decades: Joy. Wonder. History. Greatness.

RD Hubbard was responsible for the first "fuck you, fans" when he renovated the place in 1991.
Churchill Downs bought Hollywood Park in 1999, but decided they didn't want to be in the racetrack business (I know. WHAT?), selling it to these land assholes in 2005. In 2012, Hollywood Park became Betfair Hollywood Park, which meant that every word uttered by a TVG on-air dude had to be preceded by "Betfair." This was supposed to "transform" the "customer experience" for the fans, and it did. It made it even more horrible. There's also a casino stuck on the side of it like an non-removable boil.

So John Shirreffs, Zenyatta's trainer, who had been in California since taking out a trainer's license in 1978, finally cleared out and moved to Belmont. And he probably won't be the last. Hollywood Park is dead, and it's going to take with it jobs and livelihoods and horses. But these people never think about the lives they'll destroy. It's only about the happy white folks with their bike helmets, laughing as they ride down the faux cobblestone paths of a pale imitation of Walt Disney's Main Street.

I can't even think about what will happen to the horses buried there: Native Diver, Landaluce, Great Communicator. I imagine it'll be like the bank parking lot under which Tom Mix's horse Tony is buried. Maybe they'll name streets after the horses: "As an added bonus, the great room in your 500 square foot condo that costs $250,000 sits right above the body of the great California champion Native Diver. We're naming the game room after him."

The timing of this announcement is ironic, coming five days after Orb's historic Kentucky Derby. Everyone wants to move forward, no matter what it means. Nobody wants to look back at history. But here are two guys - Dinny Phipps and Stuart Janney - whose families have been in racing for 87 years. And a trainer, Shug McGaughey, who rarely takes horses to the Derby, and lets the horses tell him where they want to run. He doesn't try to schedule a horse towards a race, the way every other Derby trainer does, which is probably why we haven't had a Triple Crown winner since 1978. Orb's connections are racing history. And the horse himself traces back to Laughter, and Shenanigans, and Ruffian. This isn't the fashionable pedigree Todd Pletcher buys every year at auction, those horses everyone proclaims brilliant until it's discovered that they don't have the heart, the toughness or the stamina to do much. That isn't Orb. This is a horse that could do some big things. Giving Phipps, Janney and McGaughey their first Kentucky Derby win is hopefully only the first in a long line of many accomplishments.

So Hollywood Park gets a knife in its heart by the very people who lack hearts, while Orb and his connections display nothing but heart by winning the Derby. While this type of dichotomy is one of the most wonderful things about racing, it's also the most heartbreaking. Racing is always taking one step forward and two steps back. That one step forward is usually something glorious and magical, but it would be nice if the backwards momentum wasn't being forced by third parties like the BMLC.

Corporations have us. They'll always have us. We can't fight against them. But I guess the best we can do is to enjoy what we have, when we have it. See you closing day, Hollywood Park. Maybe they'll clean up the junkie needles and condoms for the viewing of the body. Bay Meadows Land Company: If money is all you desire, then that's what you'll receive. Enjoy the swim-up bar in Hell, motherfuckers.

Kickstart THIS

So the Veronica Mars Kickstarter happened and the goal of $2 million dollars was met day one. As of this moment, it's at $3.4 million. Over 51,000 folks have backed the project and the awards range from a pdf of the shooting script ($10) to a speaking part ($10,000, bought by a rich dude who wanted to support the project). For $35, you will get a download of the film, a t-shirt and pdf of the script.

Above and beyond the rewards, however, is the idea that a community crowd-funded something that they wanted to see, so the studio that owns the rights (Warner Bros) agreed to promote and distribute the film. Ordinarily, you pay your fifteen bucks to go see whatever the studios shovel at you. Sometimes they shovel good stuff, but more than often you're stuck with Oz the Great and Powerful, which is not worth $15. Or a dollar. But the audience doesn't get to choose whether they want to see a movie BEFORE it's made. With Kickstarter, however, they do. And they responded overwhelmingly. There's little chance, at least at this point, that we're going to get some $400 million dollar opus Kickstarted, but there's also no reason to think that that won't be the case at some point in the future.

Anyway, I was feeling pretty good about crowdfunding with the success of the Veronica Mars project. I've backed several Kickstarters. Getting the product is the reason, of course, but there's the added bump of helping to actually get something made. You're not just buying shit from China. You're actively participating in commerce, in production. We WANT to participate and be a part of something. So there's NO WAY this Veronica Mars Kickstarter could be seen as anything other than encouraging.

BOY WAS I WRONG.

I know people who are so fucking furious about this that they haven't yet been able to articulate why it's a bad idea. However, it may have something to do with a changing business model that may not include them. I don't know. I honestly don't get the vitriol directed at this project, or why it's going to Ruin Hollywood (this seems to be chugging along on its own quite nicely). It is over-the-top screeching, and I'm mystified by it.

But whatever. A few bad apples aren't gonna harsh my mellow about this. Well, until I read the stupidest article I've ever read ever in my whole life EVER. It's in the Atlantic Wire, written by a fellow called Richard Lawson, and here's the link. I don't know how he achieved it, but each paragraph was more outlandish than the previous one. I read the whole thing mainly to see what his real point was, and aside from "people should take Kickstarter money and donate it to cancer research," I got nothin'. Let's take a look at some of his more outlandish claims:

In Veronica Mars's case, they're asking you to pay for what will ultimately be a studio movie. This is not some independent film, financed on credit cards and bake sales.

But the backers are paying because they are going to get a Veronica Mars movie. That's it. End of story. The process by which the film is made doesn't matter to the backers. You know what matters? THE MOVIE THEY ARE BACKING. Is the assumption here that everybody who backs a project on Kickstarter does so because they think they're giving to a poor little indie filmmaker? Is that how commerce has EVER worked?

Nor is this an investment that anyone who donates will ever see a return on; essentially you'll be a pro bono producer. There's even a joke in the campaign's introductory video about giving donors an associate producer credit, the joke being that the title is itself a joke. Aside from some assorted rewards that only get good in the really high donation brackets, the only thing you get in return for your investment is the movie, which (depending on the size of your investment) you'll have to pay for anyway. 

Obviously, Mr. Angry Pants doesn't think that the script, a t-shirt and the FILM ITSELF is worth $35. But to the people who contributed, it is. There's also the assumption in here that there's a bait-and-switch going on. NOBODY who donated to the Kickstarter assumed AT ALL that they were going to get any return on their investment beyond their initial contribution. So this complaint, which I've heard from several Angry Panteses, is completely invalid.

And that movie will be based on a little-watched television show that's been off the air for six years. It's hard to see how the juice is really worth the squeeze. If this was some little indie movie it'd be different, but again Warner Bros. will be the ones distributing it and, theoretically, pocketing any extra money that comes in. Basically you're donating money to a movie studio. Is that something anyone should be asking you to do?

Why would it be different? Warner Bros wasn't going to make a Veronica Mars movie. EVER. Now, because of this Kickstarter, they are. I don't understand this complaint. And the delicious irony of the above paragraph is this jackanape basically saying that Veronica Mars isn't even popular enough to deserve a movie. MY GOD, MAN, THAT IS THE ENTIRE POINT. Look, if people like this moron want to invest in an indie movie, nobody's stopping them.

Kickstarter isn't a zero sum game, either. Just because bigger names are jumping into the pond, it doesn't invalidate or dismiss smaller ones. There's not just one pile of money, which is the point of crowdfunding and crowdsourcing. And really, if you are living in this world working with technology in any capacity and you don't understand crowdsourcing, then you are doing yourself a massive disservice and you should have a different job that does not involve talking to people and pissing me off.

Which brings up the larger issue of Kickstarter as a whole. Most of these campaigns aren't people who need the money, they're people who just want it. 

...in exchange for goods and/or services. So... this is wrong because...?

The same could be said for lots of actual charities, sure — if you boil the word "need" down enough, nothing but food, water, and air is left. But here in the bourgie, comfy confines of wealthy Western society, we're talking about people like the indie musician Amanda Palmer, who raised $1.2 million on Kickstarter to make and distribute a folk album. That's all. Amanda Palmer, who is married to successful author Neil Gaiman and has been a prominent musician for a decade or so. Handed $1.2 million because she asked for it.

It's not CHARITY. Handed $1.2 million to finance a tour, not to record an album, Grandpa. She didn't trick anyone out of their money. I know it's annoying when someone you don't like has fans, but come ON. FANS donated because they wanted to see her on tour. Someone saw something they wanted, a monetary value was attached to it, they thought it was an acceptable exchange, and they paid their money. WHY IS THIS WRONG?

I feel like this guy is badly misreading Maslow.

People are free to spend their money however they want, but there's something so unseemly about the asking, isn't there? Maybe that reaction is owed to some overly reserved New England quality in me that I should fight against, but I can't help but feel that Kickstarter campaigns for stuff like this, that is stuff people are having no trouble selling elsewhere, are a bit gauche. 

Advertising is a company asking people to buy things. Is that a problem, or is it okay because it's government-approved corporations doing the asking? This is MONEY for SERVICES/GOODS. Moreover, look at where we are in this country. We have no middle class and that's filtering to the arts. Unless you're doing The Avengers, good fucking luck getting your movie made. Hell, there isn't even a music industry anymore, and tours are expensive. How the fuck are you supposed to fund this stuff? Wait for the big corporations to bring you into the big tent? Well, that'll be a long wait because all they're doing is kicking people out. Authors are getting dropped by publishers. ARTISTS CAN'T MAKE A LIVING IN THIS CORPORATE ATMOSPHERE, so the idea that they are cutting out the middle man and turning directly to the public should be seen as a major positive. I just don't get it.

Plus it's too easy. Sure there might be some campaigning to be done on, I dunno, Twitter or whatever, but mostly Kickstarter is a passive thing. You set up the page, set certain reward levels, and then sit back and watch the dough roll in. Well, that's if you're prominent enough, I guess. Anyone can start a Kickstarter for just about any reason. I guess my ire is really directed at the famous and semi-famous people who, rather than hustle around town drumming up the money from proper backers and investors and then hoping money from their fans will roll in, just make some cutesy video instead and figure their work done. There's an arrogance to it that I find extremely unbecoming. 

That's great, because I find this total lack of understanding of How Things Work to be extremely unbecoming. This may be the dumbest thing in the article and that's saying something. Explain to me how Rob Thomas could get a Veronica Mars movie made any other way. Go ahead. I'll wait.

This dude seems to be saying that if you can't adhere to the corporate rules, then you shouldn't be able to find any other way to do things. If Warner Bros doesn't want to make a Veronica Mars movie, that's the end of it, even if people want to see it. WE'LL TELL YOU WHAT YOU WANT TO SEE. That shit isn't flying anymore, and I know it's scaring the crap out of the establishment, but this is gonna be the future, kids. You'd better start accepting it and figuring out how to disengage your lips from whichever corporate ass they're attached to.

Another part of my revulsion is, yes, likely to do with the simple fact that art-related Kickstarter campaigns strip away the pretense that art and commerce aren't inextricably linked. Money has always been part of the commercial art game, but the budgeting and haggling is usually done out of view, by a few select professionals. Kickstarter, though, puts the economic reality right out in the light for all to see. Someone like Amanda Palmer is essentially telling us that she doesn't want to work on spec, so if we want to hear something new, we have to pay in advance. At a moment when we're discussing the complexities of for-pay creativity, Kickstarter openly democratizes the compensatory system. I intellectually know that's probably a good thing, but my gut still finds all the upfront money talk to be a bit unrefined, let's say. Art should exist for art's sake! Crassly bringing money into the conversation sullies everything.

It was at this point that I decided I needed to write a blog post on this. Oh boy. You guys all see how fucked this is, right? Basically, NO, Amanda Palmer doesn't "want to work on spec." Or, more likely, she can't afford it. And why the fuck should she? Hey Atlantic Wire asstard, do YOU want to work on spec? How about YOU don't get paid for the work YOU do and then you try to shop it around? This is probably the most wrong-headed thing I've ever seen EVER about the relationship between art and commerce. If you are trying to pretend that Art is Art and that's it, we don't want to even THINK about artists getting paid HOW TACKY, then I don't even know what to say. It's such a hideous, despicable, insulting notion, that art isn't WORK, that the people who do art are basically court jesters or dancing monkeys who need to earn a living some other way but give their art away for free... SIGH. GAH. GROSS. You know what's unrefined? This thought process.

So, I know that part of my distaste is silly. But there's still the problem of that tackiness, the self-indulgence posing as community bartering. That would be more palatable if there was some return on the investment beyond the production of a thing that people giving the money were going to buy anyway.

Community BARTERING? Um, it's called CAPITALISM, fool!

Want to start a campaign to, I dunno, send a dying person on a nice trip? Sure, go right ahead. It doesn't even have to be as serious as that. Use Kickstarter to get a sports team some new equipment, whatever. But when it's used to pay production costs for a Warner Bros. movie, the system seems abused.

Ha ha ha. That is all.

What annoys me is that the campaign's success might embolden other essentially corporate interests to do the same thing. It's free money and they pocket all the profit! It's a great arrangement for them, so why wouldn't they try it? 

Yeah, why wouldn't they? Then maybe we'd get to see the movies we WANT. If the big corporations could be persuaded to see this as something potentially profitable, where's the harm? The second a corporation DEMANDS that people start crowdfunding against their will is the day this thing dies. What's funny here is that the guy is essentially advocating that we just bounce along letting giant companies dictate our entertainment, squash creative people and take advantage of them. What if some of these people -- those more indie minded and not inextricably fastened to the studio teat -- got proactive and followed the example of Rob Thomas and Amanda Palmer? It's not as if there's a sudden seismic shift in Entertainment where this is now mandated. The studios can continue their business model for, well, as long as they can. But things are changing, and new business models can and should be tried.

At the end of the day, strange Grandpa dude, you don't have to see the movie. There. Feel better?

Disparate Things All in One Place

It's the blog post title that sounds like a Noah and the Whale album!

So you know when you decide to get a plant, you buy the tiny plant, get a pot for it, buy that bag of soil and all the plant-monitoring things you need (I don't have any plants, BTW) and you find a perfect place for the plant? You water it, and then you forget about it because a plant isn't a cat who sits by his dish and demands food. A plant just suffers in silence. So the plant starts to wilt. The leaves turn yellow and start to fall off. And then you go, "Oh shit, my plant!" And you water it. The plant is all "THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR TAKING CARE OF MY MOST BASIC NEEDS ASSHOLE." You forget about the plant, and the whole thing starts over again.

This blog is like a plant. I am watering it right now. Topics by number:

1. Cgeye wanted the link to my post about the Star Trek movie and it is here. The new trailer was released and true to form, THE INTERNETS ESSPLODED. Because let's judge an eyeblink of a movie and know whether or not it's going to be good. Of course, the enraged folks aren't going to like it anyway. They'll see it, because otherwise they won't have specificity for their rage. So that will be fun.
2. Much has been written on the whole geek girl thing but what's most surprising to me is how surprising it was to everyone that there's an unfortunate segment of the fanboy population that despises and is threatened by women entering their man caves. I mean, that's pretty much just society. Is it primarily shocking to the sane guys working in or enjoying genre? Maybe that's it. Because I can't imagine any women who are surprised by this. What's interesting is that Slave Girl Leia or Hot Wonder Woman or Sexy Green Star Trek Alien used to be welcomed with open arms (FAR TOO OPEN ARMS) by fanboys at conventions. They used to stampede after these girls and then, true to form, call them whores when the girls rejected them.

But now ANY women in costume at conventions are being called whores before they even give the guy a chance to be rejected.

An addendum for men: Women generally do not like being treated like the animatronic Pirates of the Caribbean women being sold at an animatronic auction, just for future reference.

Anyhow. It's easier for these fanboys to focus in on the costumed women than the non-costumed women, but make no mistake. There is an unfortunate fury directed at all female convention-goers because the fanboys see women as having invaded their turf, as if it's a zero sum game. The fanboy gets to decide who is welcome and who isn't, because the fanboy has decided that he owns genre. Fanboys are pretty conservative, when you come right down to it. They do not like change. And they especially don't like change when it directly affects them. For decades (they think), they've been the ones who've decided what is Authentic and what isn't. Fringe entertainment was appropriately judged in the Supreme Court of their minds. But there's no longer a lock on that door and now anyone can walk through.

How appalling for them.

It was easy for them to make fun of Twilight because who wasn't. They thought that when the last Twilight movie opened, that would be it. No more irritating girls at conventions. But then it became obvious that Twilight was just a coincidence. Things were changing anyway. BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT THINGS DO. What they should be aware of is that the original Star Trek fans are now grandparents, and kids who saw Star Wars in the theater have kids of their own. It was inevitable that from a tiny nerdy acorn, a big tree would grow. But again, change is their enemy. And awareness for people who re-catalog their comic book collection once a year isn't really in the cards. It's like they were fifteen and then they looked up and suddenly girls were on panels.

So now we have these vitriolic trolls (STILL) but we also have the Internet, and a whole lotta people - male and female - who won't stand for this shit. Women are still going to be harassed (that's not going away anytime soon) but it's nice to know that there's an awareness out there, and that some guys don't mind women actually being afforded equal rights in the Marvel universe.

3. It's interesting how much discussion there is about Homeland versus how much discussion there is about Scandal. It's about two to one, and I'm being conservative there. Scandal, I suppose, can't be considered a relevant show because it's on a broadcast network, whereas Homeland is on classy Showtime, also the home of Dave's Old Porn. Homeland gets nominated for tons of awards. Scandal does not. People who make a living as television critics can feel good about their thoughtful, scholarly Homeland articles.

Well, enough with that. Scandal has been great. It's the only show I've seen recently that gets better with every episode. This is a show with a huge conspiracy that actually involves the characters on the show and not some anonymous, unnamed white guys sitting in a room who show up halfway through the season. I recently read an article about how conspiracies and mythology is screwing up television because we have come to expect these shows to keep topping themselves so much that they wind up ridiculous. The impetus for the article was Homeland, which has certainly had its share of conspiracies and mythology. But blaming a show's problems on the audience expectation is silly, especially if you've ever sat in a writer's room (the overwhelming majority of television critics have not).

I've always thought that reality shows have taken the place of serialized dramas, which is why crime shows became so popular. Close-ended crime shows became the purview of drama. But the pendulum seems to be swinging back a bit, in part to the serialized cable dramas like Homeland, The Walking Dead and True Blood. And it's the cable shows that are getting all of the critical attention. Scandal and Fringe, a show that's doing something no show has ever done on television, get relegated to the "guilty pleasure" pile.

But Scandal keeps growing its audience. Complaints about serialized shows involve the inevitable sensationalism, where the show must top itself and in doing so unmakes its characters and premise. Scandal is doing the opposite. The more the show unspools, the deeper and richer the characters become. What they do and who they are crystallizes and makes even more sense. And when they throw something at you that's completely unexpected, they don't back away from it. They don't change the characters. They deepen the mystery. And Scandal is doing something for conspiracies that I didn't think anyone would do anymore. They're making conspiracies thoughtful again, by putting their main characters at the forefront.

What Scandal did this past week, after a shockingly sensational ending the week before, was really impressive. They didn't just ramp up to a shocking event and then rest on their laurels while they moved the characters meaninglessly around on a giant chessboard. They did something even MORE shocking, but even MORE about character. They're making me care about EVERY character, because they don't throw anything away. All the characters do things that come out of who they are. I really don't think this show's going to fall apart when we find out the total truth about everything because they haven't just made it about the secret. They've made it about the characters, and I'm damned well going to still care about them after the reveal.

Scandal is my must-see show right now.

(clearly, I don't want to give anything away but if you guys aren't watching this show, then you deserve to be spoiled)

4. Because of recommendations from you, gentle readers, I've been watching Community. I'm almost done with the first season. I no longer watch comedies for a few reasons. One, they are no longer funny. Anti-humor has to be super well done for me to engage and mostly, I just think today's anti-humor is just hipsters afraid to actually try to be funny for fear people will find out they aren't funny. Not interested. Secondly, what goes hand in hand with anti-humor is ironic distance, and enough already. If you're too cool to be funny, then I'm too cool to watch your show.

So I never watched Community because it seemed like all those other shows and it's so nice to see that it isn't. I love how the show constantly comments on Jeff's ironic distance. Jeff repeatedly giving in to the goofy, funny, big-hearted characters really makes the show work. Also, it's just really fucking funny. Thanks for the recommendation! BTW, I tried watching Parks & Recreation, but no can do. I lumped them together. They are not the same.

5. Also along the lines of shows that aren't distant and cynical, if I had to choose one reality show to watch it would definitely be The Voice. Guys, I can't help it. I love that show. Because snarking and making fun is reserved for shit like American Idol, which actually takes itself MORE seriously in a weird way. As if finding the American Idol, the SAVIOR OF POP MUSIC, is the most important thing in the world. Alongside the terrible singers, of course. Because who doesn't love twelve weeks of terrible singers?

(me, that's who)

From the get-go, The Voice was about finding GOOD singers. Sure, it's got those cloying aspects that these competition reality shows apparently all must have but at its core, it's a positive show. Even Carson Daly comes off as authentic and warm. The interplay among the coaches is fantastic, and the fact that they're called "coaches" and not "judges" should tell you something about the show. It's a remarkable thing to make me like four people whose music just isn't up my alley, but The Voice showcases the coaches' skill and talent as musicians and survivors in the music industry.

The gimmick of The Voice, that the coaches can't see the singers and have to choose contestants based solely on voice alone, grounds this show in a way American Idol will never be. I still remember watching early seasons of that show, and one of those fucking worthless judges would say to someone that they didn't look like a pop singer. American Idol is interested in the package. The Voice is interested in the talent.

My absolute favorite thing about The Voice, though, is that it isn't about finding someone who's an awesome "sing along with the radio and kick ass in karaoke" kind of singer. There are so many sore losers on American Idol, because the show teaches people that all they have to do is hit the lottery. Has any American Idol asshole who's looked into the camera and said, "America, you haven't heard the last of me" been heard from again? It isn't about working hard, paying your dues and just needing a leg up once in awhile. That's a terrible lesson, and being Americans, we celebrate it. Not so, The Voice.

Musicians - working musicians - come on the show. The two finalists this year are working musicians who've had record deals and bands in the past. While people on forums whine about how UNFAIR that is, it's not. Certainly not if you've ever worked in any speculative business. Along with talent, people who dedicate their lives and careers to the arts have to have a pretty massive amount of luck to succeed. The Voice celebrates those artists, people who just won't give up because they can't conceive of any other way to make a living. These musicians may be frustrated at the setbacks they've had, but they're not cynical. It takes a staggering amount of belief to keep going. All three finalists are wicked talented. Hell, the entire top sixteen are wicked talented. The Voice gives them sorely needed exposure and I hope they all take full advantage of it.

It's something to remember for anyone pursuing an artistic endeavor, IMO.

Fuck, I think that's it for now. If I don't see you before the apocalypse, have a great one!!!

Skyfail?

I am thanking people again for voting for our IdeaBoost project because we won!!! We were actually chosen by the CBC Media Lab! Us!!! Chosen for something!

We're very excited.

Not sure what our next step is yet but here are some links in case you don't want to rely on my wildly unreliable blogging schedule to get updates:

Creative room:
The gold circle of mailing lists, where you get to interact with the production team. Which includes us!

Testers:
 Like technology and social media? This is the list for you!

Observers: 
Not sure if you get a fedora or not with this list. This is for basic updates. No time travel.

One way or the other, we are going to get a Goddam fairy project off the ground.

For your reading pleasure, a rant. As I've no doubt mentioned a thousand times before, I devoured Heinlein and Asimov when I was a kid. I probably read Number of the Beast a few years before I should have, in fact. But the Foundation books really stuck with me because the ideas in them were so ground-breaking. Now, I think, psychohistory can be boiled down to what Nate Silver does, which is both cool and kind of depressing. The robot novels, particularly The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun and The Stars Like Dust, were riveting. J'adore. And why they're not a television series will remain an eternal mystery. The Heinlein juveniles were books I read over and over again. Particular favorites are Have Spacesuit Will Travel and Citizen of the Galaxy. I wrote an absolutely horrible story in the vein of The Rolling Stones back then. Hopefully I no longer have it. However, when I went back to Asimov and Heinlein later, I realized that although Asimov had broken so much ground on ideas, his characters were pretty much ass. His prose style was, to put it kindly, minimal. I remember Susan Calvin and Hari Seldon and particularly the Mule as unbelievably well-drawn. Not so. And Lije Bailey? Dear God, man, SHUT UP ALREADY.

NOT the world's greatest prose stylist. But the ideas still work. Heinlein was a much better actual WRITER, but his ideas went over my head all those years ago, so that was something to get used to.

IT WOULD NOT BE A BLOG POST UNLESS I HAD A SUPER LONG RAMBLING PROLOGUE.

This leads me to the new James Bond movie, Skyfall. Basically, I do not want to argue about this movie, which is why I'm writing a blog post about it instead of talking to people. Because eventually, I would be forced to yell at people and call them stupid and that way lies madness. It boils down to this -- I FREAKING LOVED IT, and almost everybody I know sniffed and went, "It's not a James Bond movie," in much the same way they did about the JJ Abrams Star Trek movie. "I don't know what that was, but it wasn't Star Trek."

I am not a Bond aficionado in the way that people know every single thing about all the movies. I've seen all the movies, several times. I appreciate the format, i.e., Bond chases a megalomaniac around the globe, fucks women with fuck-me names, is pithy, drinks martinis, makes M roll his/her eyes, never has to fill out an expense report. But the dude's been in movies for fifty years. And it's been clear that, over time, hewing so closely to the formula hasn't done the franchise any favors. Hell, even the brilliant The Ipcress File needed to deconstruct Bond, and that was still in the early days of the Bond franchise.

IT'S NOW BEEN FIFTY YEARS.

So we got Pierce Brosnan Bond, which unfortunately stuck to the same tried-and-true formula even though the movies that were coming out around them made those movies look antiquated. The Brosnan movies just weren't good, y'all. I enjoyed them, but I wanted them to be MOVIES and they weren't. Were they Bond movies, though? Apparently yes. Right down to the formula. I don't consider the new Bond movies (or any Bond movies) reboots because it's BOND, not 21 Jump Street, and Bond's been around long enough that it has to be accepted at this point that Bond will ALWAYS be around and using the word "reboot" is ludicrous.

So the new Bond, then. It seems like the one thing everyone can agree on (after all the pfumfering over Daniel Craig being blonde OH DEAR GOD NO ANYTHING BUT THAT) is that Casino Royale is a fantastic movie, and Craig is a great Bond. Does it adhere to the formula? Well... kinda. But what I love about Casino Royale is the awareness of character. It isn't enough to have Bond chase some psycho, or fuck women, or drink martinis, or do what M tells him to. The question with Casino Royale was, What kind of a man DOES this? What does it mean to be licensed to kill? And what kind of a boss can readily send an assassin on his way, to take a life because intel says to? Casino Royale was aware of all of this, and also aware of the the climate in which it was made. Bond really did exist in a vacuum, but Casino Royale changed those rules. Bond had to be of the time, and he was.

Then there was Quantum of Solace, which again we all agreed was a piece of utter shit, mostly do to the writer's strike and Marc Forster, WHO IS NOT BRITISH, nor is he a visual director with any style whatsoever, and he never should have been chosen WTF.

And now, Skyfall, which seems to be splitting viewers. I find THAT interesting, because mostly we agree on how good or bad a Bond movie is. But this is a little odd. There are complaints that it's a reboot, that it's not a Bond movie, that the villain isn't trying to take over the world (the lack of mission on the part of the villain is apparently considered a bad thing, unless you actually PAY ATTENTION to the movie and discover that the villain DOES have a laser-focused agenda, which maybe isn't quite as fun as sharks with frickin' lasers on their heads, but which is driven by character and by the entire premise of the series, which I find particularly enervating).

Bond prior to Casino Royale is very British and very proper and mostly very fun, but we take a lot for granted. Bond is quite well mannered, almost always in control, ready with the wisecrack and seduction line. He goes into M's office and gets his assignments, flirts with Moneypenny... we've all seen it, over and over. This Bond, from the get-go, was different. And in this film, he doesn't go to the office and get handed a file... not right away. He hulks in the shadows of M's home, haggard and red-eyed, and she isn't even surprised to see him. She tries to put him off with their usual pithy banter, but he isn't having any of it.

From the first time you see them in Casino Royale, their relationship is different. It's not boss/hireling. It's more... crime boss, hired gun. Bond is the physical manifestation, the killing machine, of M. That's the ENTIRE POINT of Skyfall. M makes a bad call, which we discover is not even close to being the first bad call she's made. There are Consequences, which nicely puts the movie in the realm of, you know, the Real World. Bond, though, doesn't even seem to hold her accountable for it. He's given himself over to her, to be the king's hand, so to speak. Silva, though, has a little bit of a problem with it, and he tries to pull Bond into his web but Bond won't play. He is never even tempted. And that's Silva's downfall.

As we learn throughout the movie, Bond was made into the person he was when his parents died. So however M shaped him as a killing machine, she didn't change him. He was already changed. I just really responded to the character development in this movie, to the emotion. And the reason I mentioned the Asimov and Heinlein I read as a kid is because re-reading it, I could see what I'd missed. A little bummed to realize that Asimov spent most of his time musing instead of developing character. How does that connect to Bond? Like Abrams' Star Trek, I felt that a lot of the Skyfall criticism is from people who saw Bond when they were kids and have, in that child's mind's eye, a firmly fixed view of who Bond is. The idea that anyone would delve into what makes that character tick doesn't make sense to them, because their entire notion of Bond rests on nostalgia. I'm sure I said this in my similar rant on the Star Trek movie. People who were drawn to Star Trek for intellectual and not emotional reasons HATED the Star Trek movie. Their nostalgia was being threatened.

Gentle readers, this is stupid. It's one thing to have issues with Skyfall and another entirely to condemn it because it's not exactly the same formula as the others that have come before. With regards to the plot, Bond doesn't accomplish his goal - saving M. Criticism noted. But with regards to the character of James Bond, he finally shakes off the darkness that made him this character. He destroys that childhood and maybe the symbolism is too much for you, but I personally love it. He makes a CHOICE to come back, to be 007. And the last scene has everything new again. A fresh start. Not a reboot, exactly... but a clever and touching homage to the 50th anniversary of this most enduring character. A character who has been parodied so much, and is so recognizable by his traits that it doesn't seem possible to make him new again. But John Logan, Sam Mendes and Daniel Craig accomplish that by finally going, "Hey, why IS this guy licensed to kill? What kind of a person would go kill people when ordered? What kind of a guy sleeps with any woman he sees?" The answer seems to be, a guy who had everything taken away from him and probably has been feeding off survivor's guilt ever since. A guy who really is alone in the world and will take any opportunity to make a human connection, even if it involves fucking anyone in an evening gown. And a guy who lets himself be turned into this suave, slick creature, who can waltz around the world using his name and not creating an alias or a legend because he is either that damned good, or is waiting to finally be caught and put out of his misery.

By the end of the movie, the simplicity of the franchise has returned. We've got M and Moneypenny, refreshed. They're not ciphers, either. They're characters we follow throughout Skyfall, and they earn their place.
How that's not fascinating, but still James Bond, is a mystery to me.

I could go on and on about all the great character work in Skyfall, about the logical conclusion to the relationship between Bond and M and how this new Bond is going to treat the job as a job and not as penance. But I won't. This is already long enough.

Lastly, though, I will offer up some criticism. Adele? Meh. She couldn't clean Shirley Bassey's shoes. This is the Great Hope Of All Music? Sigh. Next time, Muse or Noel Gallagher, OR WE ARE GOING TO HAVE WORDS.

Branded to Death, Inc.

John Gaines created the Breeders Cup as a World Series or Super Bowl of horse racing. On the first telecast in 1984, he said, "We're here to celebrate the beauty, the character, the indomitable courage and the majesty of the Thoroughbred, with everyone who has eyes to see."


He would be rather horrified to see what's come of his vision, but then maybe he'd be horrified to see what's come of the world, too. The Breeders Cup has been so corporatized that it's not even about the horses anymore. I won't bore you with the specifics of what went on this past weekend.

(you are welcome)

But just as one example, the place at the walking ring where I always stand at Santa Anita cost $400 to get into on Breeder's Cup day. Each day, actually, so that would be $800 for a spot that is normally the price of admission ($5) on any other race day. What was truly sad was that there were never more than ten people in there, and not one of them ever looked at a horse. At the past Santa Anita Breeder's Cups, this was not the case. But since 2009, they have gone batshit corporate crazy. Racing, like other sports, has had sponsors for some time. You put up with this because corporate interest in horse racing can't possibly be a bad thing. The sponsorship of these companies means that they may mention the Breeder's Cup in their advertising. But when you have to see "The Kentucky Derby, sponsored by Yum Brands," it makes you throw up a little.

A lot.

The Breeder's Cup is a celebration of racing, and there are going to be some very, very high-end folks there, titans of the racing industry (OGDEN PHIPPS WAS THERE THIS WEEKEND) and of other industries, too. Even the Governor came. So did our mayor, but he's a gigantic whore so no big surprise to see him where there's a camera. He also hilariously tried to know a thing about racing and screed it up so badly that Randy Moss even commented on it. It makes sense that the Breeder's Cup and the sponsors want to make these folks happy. What doesn't make sense is this pervasive targeted marketing at a specific, apparently coveted segment of the population that I do not understand.

You've seen the types if you've ever been to a club opening or a hip restaurant: Vacant, skinny girls in too-tight gold lame outfit, tottering on impossible heels. Their boyfriends, in either suits or (usually) those Goddam big shorts like they're twenty-year-old skateboarders and not grown-ass men. These guys apparently have money to burn, because the high-end sponsors (Mont Blanc and Lalique among them) go apeshit to market to them.

The problem with people like this is that they don't actually give a shit about anything. Their only passion is to have fun. I know this because all of the marketing was so obviously targeted this way. When any of the corporate spokesmodels were asked how their brand represents the Breeder's Cup, they vomited forth a marketing press release about how Mont Blanc/Lalique/Grey Goose/John Deere was all about fun, and that's what the Breeder's Cup was about.

Well, not to its founder, who couldn't have been more eloquent when he talked about the horse. Yet the lowly horse, the whole REASON for the Breeder's Cup, was seen nowhere in any of this targeted marketing. Because corporations lie. That's their business. They don't care how they get you. They just want to get you. If you're a corporate CEO (could there BE a more worthless job?) and you haven't fucked anyone over, gone bankrupt or asked the government to bail you out at least once, then you're either a failure or a liberal.

I said on Twitter that if you wanted to know what Romney's America would look like, come to the Breeder's Cup. Because this is where we are now. We are a tiered society. The more money or power you have, the higher tier you can purchase. Look at data plans. Cable plans. EVERYTHING is about metering out a little bit at a time, then charging people more if they want or need more. Sure, this is business. I get that. But it's also overkill. Creating demand has gotten out of control. The way they carved up Santa Anita, to literally create envy and anger and demand amongst the crowd, was horrifying. This was not the fan-friendly Santa Anita I'm accustomed to. People couldn't even get over to the saddling enclosure to watch the horses being saddled without dropping hundreds of dollars on a whole different pass. And not surprisingly, it was so confusing that nobody who worked there had a clue what was going on. But that's corporate life. The right hand doesn't even know there IS a left hand. Memos must be sent. E-mails exchanged. Meetings held. Just to talk to someone.

In the fascinating documentary The Corporation, the premise revolves around the idea that corporations are sociopaths (which, I suppose, lends credence to the dumb-ass idea that corporations are people). Corporate marketing this narrowly targeted, this dishonest, is exactly what a serial killer does. Serial killers have types. Serial killers are predators. They seek out the right type, and then find a way to make them vulnerable. You know... like a focus group. Ted Bundy used a cast and an excuse to lure his victims into his van. He used vulnerability, because his study of a particular segment of the population told him that that would be effective. Like corporations do with targeted marketing. Serial killers, sociopaths, need to control the fantasy. They create it. They control it. At all costs. That's not too different from how corporate marketing works, except for the whole murder part of it. And corporations do this because it works. They need to satisfy the board and the shareholders. So they create a narrative. It's never a true narrative, though, because it's not about being creative in that way. It's a false narrative. Sometimes it's a super damned lie. But because corporations control everything, it's very easy for them to create and control a narrative. The first thing they must do after deciding upon their narrative is control the passion and emotion associated with it. So your passion and emotion don't mean anything unless they conform to the corporate narrative. Because passion that is specific to only one person is suspect. It's dangerous because it can't be controlled.

The corporations, which include the corporation of the Breeder's Cup, have taken the horse right out of the equation. There were people walking past me who were wondering how to bet. WTF? Forget all the food tents and Westfield Mall hat contest (I can't even) and the celebration of the sluts on parade, of the pretty, vapid girl who is so malleable that all the corporations fight for her cash. What about the teenagers who love horse racing and came to their first Breeder's Cup only to discover that they couldn't even stand by the walking ring? Or go anywhere near the winner's circle, because that too had a sponsor and a velvet rope? This was a perfect opportunity to get people interested in racing, to teach them about it, and they had chopped up Santa Anita into so many little sponsored pockets that they didn't even have room for ANYTHING having to do with horse racing. Breeder's Cup history? Forget it. Nowhere to be seen. Even the magnificent Zenyatta statue, visible when you first enter the gates, was dwarfed by food tents and a tent bar where the Grey Goose was flowing.

So instead of possibly growing the brand of the Breeder's Cup, WHICH IS ABOUT HORSES, Breeder's Cup decided to woo the party girls and boys who will never be back again. I guess it's an easy choice for them, since the Breeder's Cup is a once-a-year event. But for Santa Anita, for the tracks who are now stuck hosting this thing, it doesn't afford them the opportunity to use the biggest two days in racing to generate any further interest. And as someone who's watched since the first Breeder's Cup, that's a damned shame. There are so many fantastic stories over the two days but the Breeder's Cup no longer uses that narrative. The sociopath has been unleashed. One thing that struck me was how many idiot women the commentators talked to, while at the same time a woman with an actual skill, Rosie Napravnik, was winning her first Breeder's Cup race aboard Shanghai Bobby. And Kathy Ritvo was the first woman to train a horse in the Classic and just missed with Mucho Macho Man.

But America doesn't care about women making it in a male-dominated industry. America doesn't like its women hard-working, dedicated and talented. This insipid wooting over hats and rad chicks is just as destructive as the idiotic notion that stripper classes empower women. And yes, this Female Correspondent, Michelle Beadle (@MichelleDBeadle), said RAD. Like it's thirty years ago. This is peddled to the American consumer. The corporations want little girls to WANT to be these women because that's always going to be the target audience for their marketing. But there were a lot of little girls who wanted to be Rosie Napravnik this weekend, who wanted to be Kathy Ritvo or Julie Krone or Barbara Livingston or Donna Brothers or Tammy Fox. There was just nowhere at the Breeder's Cup for them.

I mean really, the prettiest woman at the Breeder's Cup was Royal Delta.

I didn't talk to one person who wasn't furious about how the general admission fans were being treated. Security was full-on nasty and obnoxious. Communication, which is always a problem with corporate "events," was non-existent. And there appeared to be enmity between Santa Anita and Breeder's Cup, which is amazing when you think about it because Santa Anita is owned by a massive corporate whore so odious I would kneecap him if given the chance.

At the end of the day, the timeless tradition of horse racing does not mesh with the party-at-all-costs idea of a marketed event. But that didn't matter to Breeder's Cup corporate folks because there was an easy solution -- just ignore what the event actually IS. Ignore the initial reason, the heartfelt idea, that went into the creation of this event which, by the way, was incredibly unpopular at first. We obviously can't fight this juggernaut. Corporations have us, guys. We have to live with it. Most of the time it's not that hard. You can ignore the dumb shit. This, however, was unbearable. I thought about writing letters, etc, but corporations have the customer-complaint contingency built in. You can't bother them that way. The only way you can bother them is with a face-to-face.

It is going to happen, corporate overlords. One day, I will see one of you, and you will spend a very uncomfortable five minutes listening to an actual person who isn't the end result of your marketing department. And that, for me, will be enough.

Hell, at least I got to meet Laffit Pincay and Bill Mott.

The owner of Santa Anita is Frank Stronach who, like that asshole Frank McCourt, knows better than to mingle with people who want to kill him. One guy I talked to the other day said when Stronach bought Santa Anita, this poor guy cried.

The correct reaction.

Frankie's on Twitter @frankstronach, but has never tweeted. Anyone surprised? No? Currently, the CEO of Santa Anita is Mark Verge. If you've ever tried to rent an apartment in Los Angeles, you have been forced to give money to this huckster. He owns Westside Rentals, another corporation that has monetized something that should be free. He's on Twitter: @markverge. It also appears as if Stronach is trying to get Gene Simmons to help market racing.


Yes. THAT Gene Simmons. Because what Santa Anita needs MORE THAN ANYTHING is more marketing from someone who knows shit about racing. Genius move, Frank. GENIUS.

Lastly, I wanted to list the Breeder's Cup Board of Directors. I don't know exactly how the corporate strategy works but if you know anything about racing, the people on this list should know better. The CEO is Craig Fravel. Since he's been the CEO for a year, it's my guess that he was the guy who decided to make all of this happen. He doesn't appear to be on Twitter (shocker) and has two LinkedIn profiles (idiot). Barry Weisbord, who does NOT like Regular People, is on Twitter: @barryweisbord, and LinkedIn. We would have an interesting conversation. Tom Ludt is too clueless to be on Twitter but is on LinkedIn. He's also the president of Vinery.

Tom Ludt (chairman)
Jerry Crawford (vice chairman)
Helen Alexander
Antony Beck
William Farish Jr.
Craig Fravel (president and CEO)
Roy Jackson
Bret Jones
Robert Manfuso
Clem Murphy
Satish Sanan
Richard Santulli
Oliver Tait
Barry Weisbord

You're fired.

This isn't a political blog. I think I've probably had two political posts EVER. However, I did want to make a few comments on the presidential election because DRAMA. No, I mean literally -- drama. You can't get anywhere in the world these days unless you are properly branded. It doesn't have to line up with exactly who you are or what you believe (clearly). It must just be clear, concise and consistent with how you present yourself.

Mitt Romney is having a tough time doing this.

Talking heads have gone on and on about what he's done wrong, how he shouldn't have said that, etc. Should he pivot more to the right? More to the center? Does he have his axel yet?

(no, he does not)

Romney's main problem, to me, is the lack of a throughline. When you're telling a story, you're defining a narrative and that narrative MUST be consistent for your story to work. When you are telling a story from a specific point of view, that point of view had better be consistent and defined. Romney has been neither consistent nor defined. I wonder if his folks even understand why people are so leery of supporting the guy. They couldn't even devise a narrative at their own convention. They had a video telling Romney's story, but that didn't even make it into prime time because Clint Eastwood had to tell a chair to fuck off.

What Romney is finding, I think, is that if you don't define your narrative, if you are constantly shifting position depending on who you're talking to, then people are going to have a hard time trusting you. Now he's decided, at least this week, that he's more moderate than he was before, but even that story doesn't stick because Paul Ryan. How do you explain THAT one? Ryan, on the other hand, is masterful at branding. When people talk about him, they generally say that he's a serious guy. He's a numbers guy. He's the intellectual of the party.

(I need a moment)

Regardless of how much like Patrick Bateman you think he is (LOTS), he's super good at branding. That's a guy who isn't likely to ever abandon his position, which would make a Romney/Ryan administration... interesting.

There's a month to the election, and Romney STILL has not branded himself. He runs towards and away from his privilege. Towards and away from the rabid right wing of his party. Towards and away from his record as governor. Etc. It's fascinating, and I can see how difficult it would be to just LAND on something already, because Bets Must Be Hedged.

THERE IS A MONTH LEFT. LAND ON SOMETHING. PONIES. BUTTERFLIES. ANYTHING.

This is, I think, a good lesson for anyone. Pick something. Decide. Commit.

Anyway, I've been intrigued with this story because it is, at its heart, a story. But during the first debate, Romney created another story. He clutched to his breast the old Republican trope of "Why the fuck are we funding edutainment??" He wants to cut the PBS subsidy, because when you cut 0.0014% of the federal budget, ALL IS FIXED FOREVER HUZZAH.

Now obviously, Romney is not stupid enough to believe this. And obviously, cutting the PBS funding is aimed squarely at those red staters who fucking HAATE themselves some Hollywood and don't think we should be funding anything so bloody frivolous. If you work in the entertainment industry and have family elsewhere (VIRTUALLY ALL OF US) then you get this on a pretty consistent basis. They complain about how Hollywood is full of liberals, which is supposedly a reason to bash it (I dunno). The only thing they hate more than the UN is the NEA, which is full of Nazis or fascists. They don't understand art, the point of it, or the power of it. But after they grunt and complain and whine that it's NOT FAIR that George Clooney gets all that money but schools don't, they flip on the TeeVee and watch their stories. They get their entertainment without even imagining a world where we no longer have it.

I'm SO SICK of the whole "education deserves George Clooney's money" trope. They are either being stupid, or cagily disingenuous for ignoring the obvious fact that while education is paid for by public funds, George Clooney is paid by private companies.

Now, while saying you're going to be the bad guy and cut PBS might make the right swoon, think about this for a moment. THERE ARE PEOPLE INVOLVED HERE WHO ARE GOING TO LOSE THEIR JOBS. But I guess that's okay, because those evil liberal jobs are the type you want to cut, right? A job entertaining your Goddam kids, teaching them how important and vital storytelling is to our survival, helping them to explore a creative side of themselves that might help them live rich, rewarding lives, IS JUST BULLSHIT BECAUSE IT'S NOT A REAL JOB.

If you grew up as a creative person, you lived through all the cuts in funding of arts programs. While the shitty football team got an all-expense-paid trip to Hawaii, you had to sell frozen fish just to go on a band trip up the road. If you continued on in your life and chose (stupidly, let's face it at this point) a career in the arts, then you've been attacked as someone who just wanted to rake in the bucks and doesn't care about How People Really Live Their Lives. When we were on strike, this little pisher whined to us about how we all get to go back to our big houses at the end of the day.

This is what people think. That we somehow won some kind of a lottery and it's cocaine and hookers for the rest of our lives. It's not. Because people who work in entertainment are people too. Their jobs matter just as much as anyone else's. What's funny about it too is that IT IS FOR THE AUDIENCE. It is FOR those people!

And when the President or anyone talks about jobs, a word I am SICK TO DEATH OF AT THIS POINT, they mean a very specific TYPE of job. A job that a construction worker can do. A retail job. Never. Ever. Ever a creative job.

(do not get me started on the so obviously focus-grouped detestable phrase "working families." Just do not)

The irony, of course, is that those who are whining the loudest about this have the houses and the vacations and the retirement funds and health care.

And if we're talking about people who got lucky and are rolling in money, then isn't that Mitt Romney?