The Ending (if you want Spoilers)

Last blogs, Finale date 201308:19

I think since the Battlestar Galactica reboot, I purposely won’t get involved in a tv series until it’s over.

For some reason, now that everyone is getting all trope savy, we all want to know about that Finale. Will a new show even make it to the end of a planned season? Theoretically the end of the 4th season is the “100 hour” mark. Once it makes it to syndication, how is the series going? Is it deep into the season’s drama? Did they develop a good Big Bad for the season or better yet series?

It’s so tough to get a movie made with all the development hell steps, the worst thing a movie could do is blow it in those last 10 minutes. You can’t even get a sequel to make up for it if it doesn’t generate enough interest (income) to make one.

People can get hooked on the BEST series and then it’s ruined with the series finale. While were sucking Lost’s cock and critics were circle jerking around it, I kept remembering Battlestar and waiting…. And every time I hear about all the other anti- hero dad tv series, I think the same thing.

People weren’t even satisfied at the draw your own conclusion ending with Soprano’s. I read about viewers theories and apparently the foreshadowing came to the same conclusion real life did. There can be no Soprano’s reunion where Tony lives.

Also, all these dark series have taken their toll on me, albeit slower than “reality” tv did. That happened to me around the 4th season of Real World.

I can’t avoid all the tweets and articles about Breaking Bad. Is there any way the series could end that would satisfy half the viewers? The whole point is to watch the Big Main spiral into hell. What happens if they don’t do that? Or they attempt to “redeem him the right way?“ Remember the Shield?

It’s why I had to watch Harry Potters and I will have to rewatch them. That series just got better, even though 1) we know the ending (the “chosen one” vs. any evil?) and 2) it’s a collection of every English fantasy fiction trope as well as acting pool for the past 40 years. But, it maintained a quality and went out big and I have to study the success, from the first book to the last.

Harry Potter is apparently the big fluke because Rowling wasn’t known for much more (public media-wise) before that. So every time I look at a series everyone loves, I spend more time reading about what the creator has done before.

Game of thrones “guy” was known for writing before and people can look at his earlier work to try to gauge the quality of it now. And that leads to questioning if his writing (endings) have improved, or is he still trying to beat the dead horses of his earlier stuff? You know, like how a band comes out with a new album but all the songs are still the same? Do people even listen to a whole “album” anymore? At least we’re aware that many characters (that people got interested in) are going to die in the series, since there are cast of thousands.

It seems like a big deal is to have a cast of thousands, too. Simpson’s Springfield, Lost. It’s not enough to follow a dozen people on a show for some reason. A show has to have an expanded universe as big as Star Wars by the end of the first season. And yet, if the focus is shifted so much off the main characters, what the hell are people watching then?

I admit I read spoiler endings, now. It’s not to answer the big questions, it’s so I can see if those are the lessons/ answers I want or need to learn..

Blog gang bang, fill all holes

Action blog, accomplish date 66480.37

It’s time for another blog slathered in catch up. The good news is I’ve been busy.

1) I had a fish tank I moved around for years, so of course when I decided I’d start an aquarium to give my cat a TV for her to watch, I found it had a crack on the bottom, probably from the move back to Podunk. I was able to get a replacement, I paid more at a small local shop with historical roots for the past 50+ years, not a national imported chain. And I’m broke ass, it was worth it.

2) I’ve been reading a lot, resulting in some interesting opposites. Last month, I removed the tv, computer and I won’t bring my phone anymore into my bedroom. It’s created a strange land where sleep actually occurs. And I find myself thinking about getting to get back to my comfortable bed a few times a day. I read there, but I don’t get far, because lying down, I’m knocked on my rem ass pretty quickly, often with a lamp on and me waking up to a smashed book.

And I can’t read in the living room kitchen, because computer and tv. So I go out and I find myself looking for a hangout. I used to bring a book when I knew I’d go to the DMV or back in the day when I went to crowded malls for the Holidays (before I got smarter and did my shopping thru the year during all the business closing sales). I also got my reading done at bus stops. So Now I’m actually looking for an excuse to wait for something to read, that part’s kinda sad.

In the library, I can get reading done, but I wind up checking out FAAR more books than I can get thru. I want to check everything out, given 15 minutes to wander around. I get into audio books and dvds and I overload myself I wind up skimming everything which is bad news. My mind scrambles and I find myself in 5th gear with road vision, not paying attention to anything. And not retaining what I want to read is no good.

There are a dozen reasons why I don’t patronize the five bucks coffee place. The bathroom of a coffee shop has to be the scariest part of any business. I do love the term laptop hobos, another reason why I don’t go. And I never understand why people want to be around coffee beans grinding, can’t they do that in a radio booth or something?

A bar in the afternoon, now that’s nice and quiet. They want my business and the drunks are stewing about their own business and generally aren’t loud, or for very long until they get kicked out. There are chairs against the wall to sit at, although I do have to plan what I read that won’t draw a big interest. People want to look at your cover and I can’t take the jacket off a laminated library book easily. But I haven’t had a beer in a long, long time. What about an empty mug, optimists?

3) I’ve been analyzing my favorite tv shows of all time. I’m obsessed with studying why tv shows fail. I look at directors, producers and writers to see where their careers peaked and what’s happened to them after. On one hand, I’m worried that I hit my peak about 5-6 years ago. You can’t get better than what I got to do in my boredom that I spend most of the day trying to capture now.

In a status update, I decided I need to find a symbolic movie at least, something to pump my “worth” back up. It seems like I’ve been trolling the trade show/ infomercial circuit of life.

4) I’ve read enough business books, econ books and seen many, many seminar/ webinar videos on you tube. Once you get past all the god awful clichés, the inspirational story with inconsistent symbolism, the gimmick words and phrases, the sales pitch for books, web sites… What was I- oh, there are nuggets of wisdom. The 20/80 principle seems to come true, you get 20% wisdom for the 80% of bullshit to wade past. One thing I know is that while my schedule may be open, I need to keep busy educating myself with as much reading as I had in college. I’ve done more, but unfortunately I don’t have a certificate or diploma as proof.

I know I need to produce something on my own, be my own CEO. Stop working for jackassery of national companies where I’m an unknown cog. If I work at a local business one on 1 with the owner/ manager, I’d be far more important to the business. So I continue to focus on a small, local to work for, while I hedge that with trying to sell articles about local events to local rags.

Seems like most of the authors/ presenters ride on their promises with the next book, while writing a lot of rah rah fluff in the mean time.

I write about my adventures, instead. And harsh lessons. And unlike stories your friends tell you, I’m not always the hero of the events I recall.

Second Weekly Blog?

Writer’s blog, mancave date 66297.87

(It occurred to me it may not be right to use “bardate” until I can regularly go to one again :/)

I debated writing a second blog/ week, I have no reason not to when I consider some vloggers are making 5 videos/ week on youtube.

So then I considered a format for it. I know I’d try to post it on Thursdays. I think it would be best to consider it a bonus blog in case I can’t keep doing it every week. I should be able to, I have enough in my mind. I’ve seen people on youtube that have a second “channel” for “behind the scenes” stuff.

Should I do a weekly news thing? I’ve grown to rant about people who do this, but I understand why. Current events bring popular media recognition to a blog/ vlog. I’d get pissed that people have to scrape the news barrel for something to comment on. Meanwhile I’m watching a lot of these people regularly, so double damn on me. I’m a black pot. But I don’t want to just rant about the hypocrisies of news, a trap I fall very easily into. I need to Bugs Bunny shit that annoys me and cut back on my Daffy Duck.

A few years ago, I used to give people shit about talking about tv characters at work or while we were in a bar, as if they were real people. I had a point then, we were in FUCKING VEGAS. There are millions of things to do all over town and in hundreds of bars, clubs, restaurants and attractions to be talking about fake tv. And half of tv is filmed in Vegas anyway. It’s still cool to see me on my motorcycle pop up on stock footage in a show, or me in someone who I don’t know vacation’s photo background.

Now I’m on the outside, looking in. Now I can renti things that were filmed when I was there. And it’s largely because I can no longer afford to go out and what‘s on network tv now would drive me to a lower mental capacity. I now watch the film/ tv shows that seem to have a big impact on not only my friends, but critics and even some award shows. I usually dismiss the “big” award shows, since they miss the most historical films of the time.

There are a lot of films/ tv shows I’ve never heard of. Why? I put a lot of those movies aside unless there are a lot of actors I like in it or a film maker that thinks out of the box I can trust: your Art Linklater, Charlie Kaufmans and Terry Gilliam types.

After watching 11 seasons of CSI on DVD, there are a lot of movies written out there stupidly writing down in rom coms, etc. I can’t imagine any actor from CSI doing one of those dopey mindless “if they just talked for 5 minutes to clear up the miscommunication there wouldn’t be a movie” comedies.

Or, screw it, maybe I’ll just write stream of consciousness Thursday and allow my Monday posts to be about a single thing. Or… keep the Monday format and concentrate on developing that and my “second draft posted” grammar. I pick a random blog and I still correct grammar/ spellings that pick at my brain.

And then there’s my audience where I’m tempted to say what do you guys want? I admit, I don’t have much of a following, this is more for me to just get things out of my head. I throw my little bottled messages here and on twitter into the interweb’s ocean. I don’t get out and promote on every other site, or drop my handle linked comments all over the net. For now, anyways.

I maintain my social sites so that when I can work and feel happier about being able to put money into my dreams, I can start to link some of the sites together.

Yeah, I spent my extra blog writing about writing an extra blog. #meta

So, Thursdays could be anything above, it’s a bonus blog day.

Why Community is the best show on NBC

Writer’s blog, bar date 66199.51

I just deleted 2 blog topics when I realized what week- nay what day it is.

One of the top 3 reasons you can get me to turn on the TV (that’s not to watch a DVD) is Community. I don’t even know where to begin.

I knew nothing about this show a year ago. It’s in it’s 3rd season. But on a random lark, seasons 1 was available at the library, so I checked it out. Luckily, they also had season 2 thereafter.

The creativeness really blew me away. The premise sounds incredibly boring, a study group at a community college. And it blasts the meaning of understated that each of these people in the group go thru amazing transformations, transcend beyond their perceived expectations and travel in so many worlds, it picks up the baton from the void left after Star Trek Next Generation & Voyager left off. This is all in a half hour show.

Since cable will never be an option and before I got cheap DSL at home, it was worth it to me last fall to watch each season 3 show by going to the library each week & watch it online.

Ratings suffered and twitter rumor suggested it was circling the drain. This came to a head when this spring schedule came out from the networks with the show missing entirely. There was a minor outrage on twitter from fans like me. Comparisons were made to all the other shows cut before their prime like Arrested Development (coming back), Firefly (came out w/ a movie). What’s your fave show cut early?

And I don’t just complain about my little tv show. I’ve protested w/ 99% against the banks and wall st. (you may have noticed I don’t capitalize things I don’t respect for the most part) I watch PBS news when most are watching TV personality gossip shows (I never refer to them as stars or celebrities). I volunteered at the food bank and Thanksgiving kitchen. So I am active in my own… Community.

As a tv show, it also does a lot of cool things that I liked about other shows. They highlight their B-team characters. They don’t just sit at the study group table and whine. Again, like Star Trek, it’s like a bridge they meet at to plan things when they go out on Away Team missions. Each new class they have is an interesting sub culture with more radical characters of instructors.

This has to be the most interesting community college in the country. I like shows where the main property has all kinds of different departments affecting the run of the whole. It’s a campus, but they don’t go overboard with 5,000 characters. I don’t think Lost fans could really keep up with all those characters for “an island.”

It’s like Twilight zone. It explores each of the character’s wants, but gives them incredible temptations and personal jackpot kinda tastes of an extreme. There are a lot of shows that plunge into genres. And true to each, the study group plugs into genre stereotypical characters in each environment from westerns, to politics, to even time traveling parallel universe stories.

And I could go into each character, but something that hit me was that I could relate to all but a couple of the characters in some major way (sans Dean and Shirley). And even Shirley is starting to reveal there are things in her past that she devotes her life to making up for. Each character seemed pretty stereotypical from the beginning of the series. To me that lasted about 4 shows and things really snowballed in unpredictable directions.

That was something I loved most of all. Most tv shows, you tune in and the same characters are sitting in the same living room snarking each other and it gets tired if they don’t have adventures out in all kinds of new places “out there,” not just a second “work set.”

Cop shows get old with the premise, but at least they get to go to new criminal environments. Star Treks had a new “planet hell” down the line. I could see why the network wouldn’t back an expensive location changing show, but I’m so damn sick of shaky docucam awkward pause humor. It’s tired.

There are so many comedians I love and can’t stand on the shows that don’t show how funny they are: Craig Robinson, Whitney Cummings, I could go on.

Big Bang is on 5 nights a week, why don’t you watch Community on NBC Thursday at 8:00PM pacific? They have new catchphrases every week, John Hughes level character development, it’s just damn funny. #sixseasonsandamovie #greendale7

Advanced Wikia Sociology

I know, I flaked on you guys last Monday, so I’m writing this now and will start writing the next blog right after to hopefully have it up by Friday. 2 blog corpses for you to feast on this week.

What “ha’ happent” was like a mad scientist trapped in my project, I got caught up in writing about writing. It just exploded to a bunch of chapters I’m writing for my 2012 projects. I didn’t want to interrupt that flow. The original outline I still want to do after this, but this is about the cultures, tv cultures I got caught up in. It triggered a lot of personal memories and situations I couldn’t stop listing and typing about.

You guys have a lot of favorite tv series, like I do. There are some on tv I don’t understand and I focused on tv series, favorites and otherwise, that go well beyond the magical 4th/ 5th season that gets the 100 episodes required for syndication.

I think it started out as me asking myself what the differences are between Simpsons, South Park and Family Guy. I think I watched Simpsons w/ the original writers the first few seasons before I stopped, I got rid of cable after 9/11. I never got into South Park when the topics were more random. Now I actually like how focused their episodes are on a satire/ parody topic. I never got into Family guy, it seemed too random cutaway joke tangents to me?

All of those have wikia sites, I also looked a lot at Memory Alpha (every trek series wikia), How I met your Mother and I’m sure I can think of others. (Don’t get me started on this seasons HIMYM, it’s circling the drain.) I am obsessed with how detailed the timeline scrutiny holds up with those shows. And in studying all the recurring things in people’s lives, I got flooded with plugging in my own experiences I’m writing about.

I don’t think I had much writers block before, but it was tougher for me to discipline my self to produce a x amount of words every “”work” day.

But all those wikia sites have a lot of cool things I raped ideas from with people I know. Everyone has family members, a job, they live somewhere, they have vehicles. Most went to or are in school, they have jobs, financial and social statuses. They all like teams or participate in competitions.

Non fiction writing has interesting liberties I’m allowed to take. I can change a few identifying facts and names about people to protect them, like listing oh, where they eat as an example. I’m allowed to mish mash some facts as long as I have a point and a direction I’m going.

There are a lot of cool things tv series have that keep people coming back to, like lists of things. What are all the things on Earl’s karma list? How many ways can you say Legendary? What are the other Ferengi Rules of Acquisition? How many hundreds of shuttles Voyager wrecked? What are the other conditions of the rental agreement in Big Bang theory? How many ways can you kill off Kenny? How many chicks has Charlie Harper (and Sheen) banged? Oh, I have Vegas lists, certainly nothing like in any guidebook I’ve ever seen before, of any vacation spot.

TV shows have an artery of exploration. In M*A*S*H, you’ll have tons of patients that come in. Most shows have date of the week, cop shows have criminals and suspects, Cheers has customers to get drunk, Star Trek has aliens, ships and planets. It’s why I started watching Voyager & Twilight Zone on netflix, I missed mind challenging TV.

With all the one camera shows on now, the handheld, moving camera shows, with people sitting in the same living room or office every week- I can’t stand those shows. What’s sad is I love some of the actors and I can’t get thru a whole episode. thankfully, I don’t have cable to rot my brain with anything Kim Kardashian, Jersey Shore, or housewives. I sacrificed History channel and animal Planet to save, though.

Vegas has so many worlds in it, they all barreled in my mind in flashes when I can relate each place or event as a television episode. It’s why I reviewed on yelp. I also read books on writing short stories on how to condense stories, get the most out of each character, keep things going, involve all senses, take advantage of even the most minute conflicts. It’s all been real inspiring to me the past couple of months.

And I have my favorite writers and directors giving me DVD commentary “seminars” on the writing and production process. Don’t get me started on you tube, there are people putting out some impressively consistent things on a weekly basis.

Part of being unemployed is dealing with feeling like you’re not producing anything. This way, I can produce the best of what I want, my favorite things. Hopefully this year, I can start get paid from my writings.