Not Quite DiMaggio-Esque.

I had a pretty good streak of consecutive posts going there for a while. Unfortunately, I was felled by a very bad sinus infection yesterday and I literally couldn't sit up in my chair after 8pm. This, after 3.5 hours of intense Christmas shopping, which I have only completed to 70% satisfaction as I write this here from work.

Still, later tonight I'll post part three of the five part, exciting, thrilling, virtual page-turner "The Night They Killed Kansas." Before then, I'll remain sick.

Song recommendation: "Nausea" by Beck. Man, can that scientologist write and produce music or what?

Something So Simple.

That little voice in the back of your head more often than not conveys common sense, or things your parents taught you or vague recollections of moral fables you read in grade school. That little voice in the back of your head is the thing that stands behind you before you do something incredibly stupid or incredibly selfish and says, "Maybe not?"

Perhaps that little voice in the back of your head is more forceful than mine. Perhaps that big voice in the front of your head is less bullish and stubborn than mine. Perhaps I am reaching here and my construct of that little voice in the back of your head is pure poppycock.

That said, I have never been the guy who thinks before he speaks or otherwise acts. More often than not such behavior has led to little else than being labeled a jerk or an ass, or at the very least crass, but insightful. On rare occasion, my shooting-off-at-the-mouthery has damaged relationships. Not just the meaningful ones, either, but professional ones, too.

Without going into specifics, let me just say put it out there that I am very, very sorry little voice in the back of my head. I'm sorry for all the times I've flatly rejected you, even though I knew you were right. I'm sorry for all the times I disregarded you out of sheer not-hearing-you.

I always say I will try to do better the next time you speak up, but who knows if that's even possible. I'm 25. It's a medically proven fact that people become set in their ways by the time they're 4, so, I could very well be stuck. Then again, as Homer Simpson once said, "Statistics can be used to make up anything. Fourteen percent of all people know that."

What's that, little voice in the back of my head? It was a bad idea to write this vague post?

Touche.

Something to Blog About.

Part three and the concluding parts four and five of The Night They Killed Kansas will debut next week as I take the weekend to craft it. In the meantime, please enjoy some writerly advice that I prepared for an interested party. I'm no expert and this is just my general opinion of getting started that I've developed up to now. My grasp of the situation will obviously change as time progresses, so indulge a young man's thoughts on how to develop into a screenwriter.

***************************

The first thing I can say is that you have to want to write. It's not something anyone can just pick up and be good at. Whatever your writing, whether it be stories, scripts, plays, novels, poetry, nonfiction, etc. the only way to improve at the craft (and that's what it is, a craft) is to rewrite and rewrite. Great scripts can go through as many as 10-12 drafts by a single writer. And a draft isn't considered just fixing punctuation and deleting scenes. Drafting is about refining, honing, improving. Like any made-up recipe, it takes time, practice and a little bit of luck to perfect. And oftentimes, a writer never feels like she/has has "finished" what they wrote.

So, on the most basic level, just start writing. Keep a journal. Start a blog. Write more letters.

You don't even need a "GREAT, AWESOME, SUPER-AMAZING IDEA" to start. You could just write about your eyelashes, if you wanted. Exercise like you would a muscle, strengthen it.
Then, you can start to figure out how to express yourself through stories. If you're looking to write a screenplay or something, the key to one is not just about the idea/storyline/plot/high concept, but also how you express yourself.

Professional writers achieve success by having something to say and saying it in their own special way. If you sequestered three writers in a room and asked them each to write a two page scene involving two cats and a furball, you'd probably have roughly the same setup of the scene, but different ways of expressing the idea. In other words, your characters don't have to all sound exactly like you, but each of them, in their own way (as they are their own unique characters) will speak your mind to the audience.

Then there's always the other stuff about dramatic conflict, plot dynamics, escalation, etc. which are all structural notes that give shape to your Big Idea. Conflict is the essence of drama. Comedy, too.

You can pick up any number of books about structure. Story by Robert McKee is a standard. But, if you are interested in writing, I say just start writing your thoughts down. Give yourself exercises and simple topics (like a teacher would assign an essay) and get to work on those. Really become confident in the notion that you could learn to be an even better writer before you tackle big time screenplays.

There are always classes and writers' groups and they're all helpful, particularly if your individual background lacks writing experience.

I'm sorry that your friend poo poos your ideas. It is easier to critique than to commend and easier to tear down ideas than encourage them, but, still, support will definitely make the process a lot easier.

If you have one or two movie ideas, I say develop your characters first and see how they fit in with your Big Idea. If you find that you want to have certain types of characters that don't jive with your Big Idea, then consider altering that Big Idea to fit your characters OR starting a new story altogether, one that will work better with the people you've created.

Running for More Yardage.

Hooray 49ers! Way to kick the Seahawks’ asses in that second half! My Niners are becoming quite the second half team. They’re still a couple of years away from seriously contending, but they might actually be making progress now that they can compete a little bit on the road. And God Bless Frank Gore. He was gifted with football talents, but not speaking skills.

Meanwhile, I am writing this with some possibly rancid cake in my stomach, so, watch out for possible signs of hallucination. Don’t call in a medical emergency or anything, but just be aware that the writing might suffer… or succeed…?

Anyway, this short will be a five-part series. Here’s part two.

THE NIGHT THEY KILLED KANSAS
- part two -

Beldon Sew saw what he wanted to see, but in this case his attempt to see a naked sophomore with an undiagnosed melanin deficiency on his bed was futile.

Veiny Boobs was gone and there was nothing he could do to bring her back.

Clearly, when a woman smacks the side of her head against a hardwood floor she loses the desire to get down with some friction, but Beldon couldn’t ignore his id’s opinion that she had overreacted. Accidents happen, but Natalie was not having any of him after she got a headache.

And he was so close to losing his virginity, too. And to a sophomore who had decided slumming it up was worth the possible ridicule she might endure from her classmates. What would her stoner friend Hydra think? What about her guy friend Chadwick, the guy he had seen her leave with at the food court?

Then Beldon considered the possibility that his chica blanca might have been cheating on a boyfriend. When she hit her head, she might have literally had some sense knocked into her. And as Beldon rubbed his hard-on, he thought about how used he would have felt to be just some random dude some chick cheated on her boyfriend with. He’d much rather he be used when both he and the girl in question were single, so as to create the possibility of future hook-ups. Also, losing his virginity on a one-night stand was, in his mind, a hallmark of useless people.

So, with the evening still in its infancy, Beldon ceased to fondle himself and contemplated his next move. There was always the basketball game. The Jayhawks were in town tonight and he knew he could always score a ticket in the student section, thanks to his friend Miranda who worked in the ticket office. But if he went to the basketball game, he knew his night would end in violent frustration.

In just a few months of college, he had already been to a dozen parties where virtually every person in his traveling group left with somebody else. He would either be the designated driver for these alcohol-aided winners or walk home a substance-free loser. His pride could not stand such crushing disappointment again, particularly after he had been so close to having sex for the first time not fifteen minutes earlier.

His other option was a LAN party held at his high school buddy Cole’s parents’ house. But Beldon didn’t want to play Warcraft, and for some reason, he was finding the name Cole to be exceedingly irksome tonight. Possibly because it’s a cool name held by a nerd bigger than himself. Beldon was a perfectly nerdy name and it never caused people to assume he was cool initially. Cole gets the benefit of the doubt but can’t help but annihilate that opinion soon after by asking people if they want to have a Battlestar Galactica marathon or something. But the first impression he caused people to have was that he was cool, whereas Beldon couldn’t escape the nerd label.

Now he could add loser to a growing list of labels. Some of his English 201 peeps called him “Weirdo,” the woman at the lunch counter called him “grabby” and the admissions officer who interviewed him over the telephone labeled him “aggressive.” Had he not been an aggressively grabby weirdo coming into tonight, he might have escaped being called a loser and he might have gotten his sex on, too.

Very quickly, Beldon was swinging back in favor of the LAN party. He had made himself depressed after analyzing his situation. When he found a strand of Natalie’s long brown hair on his pillow, he knew that 12 consecutive hours of living in a virtual world would be the only anesthesia to take away this pain he was feeling.

He hopped off the bed and looked for his lucky hat. The last time he wore it he had kicked Cole’s faux cool ass back to the Stone Age in Half Life. Tonight, he would make him cry. But when Bolden found his lucky cap on the floor next to his television, he realized that her purse wasn’t the only thing Natalie had taken with her when she left.

As he put on his Orioles' cap backwards, he remembered that she had brought a digital camera with her. He had intended to ask her about it, but when he caught a glimpse of her thong, his mind turned to lust. But, yeah, there had been a camera on top of the TV next to her purse, and that’s how is hat must have ended up on the floor.

Did that mean she had recorded their encounter? Why?

Desperate to have these answers, he jumped in front of his computer and Googled her name. The search criteria pulled up over 7,900 entries, so, he changed the search to include the name Hydra. He pressed enter.

And then he saw what the night was really all about.

Natalie and Hydra had recently won a case in small claims court against a gay porn website that had laid claim to the domain name www.virgincollegeboys.com. But according to the website’s Legal Notice link, Natalie and Hydra’s company Girl Entrepreneurs, LLC was the first to submit a bid to the web squatter who had initially registered the domain. Their legal link went on to say that the website was now able to produce weekly content for its paying customers. A click on the homepage revealed Veiny Boobs’ intentions: she somehow knew Beldon was a virgin and planned to record his first time to post on her website.

But even though Beldon should have been relieved that he and Natalie never copulated, he knew that his first, awkward fuck could not top what Natalie’s camera had actually recorded after she hit her head.

An Attempt At Sucking Less.

With site traffic at an all-time low, I thought I’d try and post something more interesting than my random thoughts and news items and try something a little more fictitious. Maybe web surfers like stories. Maybe…?

Anyway, this was written on the fly. Trash it in the comment section below.

THE NIGHT THEY KILLED KANSAS

- part one -

Beldon Sew saw what he wanted to see.

In this case, he ignored the fact that Natalie, while cute and petite, was nevertheless as pale as chalk, her pallor invalidating her sizably attractive bosom by exposing her veins. The first time he met her, he labeled her Veiny Boobs in his head. On this Saturday night, he could not remember the silly name he had given this ghost-white girl who now straddled him.

They had met the previous weekend through one of his English 201 classmates. She was enjoying a malted in the Student Union, while her improbably named friend Hydra tried to score a dimebag from his classmate. Beldon didn’t care for drugs and was annoyed that after all the overachieving he accomplished in high school just so he could start college as a Sophomore he still wound up in a class full of people beneath him. Still, the drug transaction did give him a reason to walk away and strike up a conversation with Natalie.

She was like any other girl at Oral Roberts: vanilla, suburban chic, and a double major in Nursing and Theology, the only double major you could have if you were in the Nursing Program. Beldon considered that she was only interested in obtaining her M-R-S Degree, but dismissed such thoughts in favor of busting her hymen. He figured her for a virgin when she demurred at the concept of teabagging. But as she staked her claim atop him, Beldon considered that his initial impression of her may have been false.

“What are your intentions?” she demanded.

His brother London once told him that the more of a fuckface you are to a female, the more likely she is to bear your children. While putting a baby in her belly wasn’t on his list of priorities, Beldon did want this girl’s attention for the near future. So, he put that brotherly advice to good use.

“Depends on which one of you I can have: Curious Coed or Sultry Slut?”

“You think I’m a slut, do you?” she asked, as she pushed against him. He tried to conjure up more douchey, asshole-ish things to say to her, but found it difficult to come up with new ideas in the face of increasing brain blood loss.

He grew uncomfortable as she grinded her pelvis against his jeans. The button and the zipper pressed down against his crotch. Beldon feared his pubes would get caught.

Then she tickled him.

It was like the murder of Franz Ferdinand. His nervous system kicked into World War I mode. He had to get Natalie, Veiny Boobs, whatever off of him. He had to stop the tickling. Tickling caused him to revert to a fetal ball of rattled nerves. Veiny Boobs’ skillful dodging of Beldon’s arms and legs allowed the assault to continue. He could not escape. He was on his way to that baby ball and that would be the end of his night.

He’d never lose his virginity that way.

But if he were an asshole, he’d have a fighting chance to salvage the night. So he did the only thing he could think of through the fracas. He bucked her off him and onto the floor. She hit the hardwood with a thud.

The Most Esteem-Crushing News Ever.

Holy shite-balls.

Condoms for Indian males are too small. And this is news. The worst part? Newspapers in India have headlines such as "Indian Men Don't Measure Up."

I guess this is men's comeuppance for all the years of "Woman Nags Herself to Death," "You'll Never Be Pretty Enough," and "Face It Ladies: He's Just Not That Into Hindu" headlines from the past.

Seriously, this is devastating, especially for the younger guys. India's trying to control it's HIV infection rate, and separting the would-be carriers from their self-esteem is the exact wrong thing to have happen.

Two possible side effects from this news: (1) more HIV infections due to men being too prideful/ashamed to wear condoms or (2) people stop having sex. India's population is already in the eleventy billions, so, I doubt they'd see the effects of this for several thousand years, but, suffice it to say pride has led to the destruction of many things, one of which has been civilization.

**And, yes, I realize I got this in just under deadline. I have another coming very shortly.**

40 Hours of Sleep.

Oh, if only sleep could be accumulated. Imagine the possibilities. Imagine the productivity. Imagine the compounded interest.

Parents could spend more time with their newborns, students would be able to cram the night before, provided they slept in all day the previous Sunday because of their hangover, and beauty sleep could be postponed for the ugliness of wakey-tude.

I haven't worked out the DNA for all this yet, but I would say that if sleep were cumulative, you wouldn't be cranky if you went 48 consecutive hours without sleep provided you slept 12-16 hours previous to then. I would not be agitated by not being able to grip my dental floss right now. I would not find the sense of sound, touch and sight to be so grating on my every nerve.

Looking ahead, I think the possibility of starting a family is the biggest threat to my sleep time. Those in the know are aware that I sleep longer than doctor-prescribed hours and stay awake for long stretches. My sleep habits are pretty well established, so, in the event there's a baby to raise somewhere down the line, I don't want those first 6 months to be harrowing in the sense that if the baby's crying I won't be able to hear her/him and mommy won't be able to roust me out of bed. I'd like to have the opportunity to fail as a father in a conscious state, preferrably by speaking before I think (rather than drop the kid), and preferrably with a son, as most serial killers only have Mother issues and daughters tend to become exotic dancers or Paris Hilton if they have Daddy issues.

So, knowing all that, I should probably get to sleep and rest up for whatever comes my way.

The Feel Good Story to Follow the Feel Bad One.

If you follow the link to the right of this post and visit TV writer Jane Espenson's blog, you'll find that she helps her readers (aspiring TV writers in their own right) with story structure and helpful hints for writing a script. A couple of weeks ago she suggested that writers sometimes look at bad examples of writing as a way of bolstering self-esteem, a particularly helpful way of keeping one's self sane through the process.

Well, here's my esteem-bolstering script excerpt, courtesy of MyNetwork TV's new series, Watch Over Me.

Here's the simple setup: Michael Krieger is a wealthy man involved in the medical research industry. He has some grand scheme that we don't know anything about right now, but we do know that he wants a particular researcher on his Evil Project. One of his Evil Cohorts is a Senator, one who controls the desired scientist's research fund, so, Michael Krieger pulls some strings. In this scene, the Senator has just met face-to-face with the reluctant research scientist, to see for himself the guy's reluctance to work for Krieger:

KRIEGER: Well, Senator?

SENATOR: Dr. Rivera stonewalled. He actually cut the meeting short. Saw right through me. Do we even need him involved in our operation, Michael?

K: Dr. Rivera has the kind of visionary mind we need. Only he can perfect the virus. And that virus is the key to our success. Let’s not forget we’re trying to change the world here, Senator.

S: Hmm. Is that what you call it, Michael? Some would call it treason. Others might call it madness.

K: I call it profit. Billions in profit. You’re not getting cold feet on me now, are you Senator?

S: No.

K: Good. Selling death requires backbone and I hope you have it. I was hoping Alfred wouldn’t be so difficult, but it seems he’s forced my hand. (Beat) Cut his funding.

S: I’ll take care of it. (beat) Is Julia aware that you’re having me destroy her father’s career?

K: Julia knows nothing, and it’s going to stay that way. Kill his grants. Leave him penniless. He’ll have to come to me.

S: I’ll do it.

K: (to his assistant) Expect a call from Dr. Rivera soon. (beat) Oh, and Leandra, he won’t be happy.

Duh duh DUHHHHHH.

Awesome. So arch, so unnecessarily over the top. I used to write like this when I wrote Star Trek episodes back in eighth grade and high school.

Enjoy your weekend!

Sufficiently Excited.

For a long time now I’ve been unable to get excited about much of anything. And by excited, I mean that unbridled enthusiasm we had as kids or, for some, even now. Unbridled enthusiasm is great because it has no critic. The internal critic has become the bane of my enthusiasm, and now it is so overpowering that even bridled enthusiasm is met with sinister and calculating disruption on its part.

I’ve contemplated naming my inner critic, but the comical ones (Judgey McDouche) lighten the intended tone and the melodramatic, more serious names (Lurking Death, Blu Melancholia) don’t quite hit the mark. So, usually, I just say, Screw you, inner critic. If you had a name, I’d say something worse. But my inner critic, my world-weary inner shield of experience, has effectively abated all forms of enthusiasm in my adult life.

That’s a slight exaggeration, as some events have generated genuine excitement and looking forward-to-it-ness akin to my youth, but those have come few and far between. More often than not, I become a killjoy or am bereft of feeling altogether. To be fair, it’s not all my inner critics’ fault. There was a key moment that started it all, gave the inner critic his/her first assignment: college.

I pretty much new I wanted to work in entertainment in the 6th grade. Then, I only figured myself for a director. But as I got a little older, I adjusted my ambitions according to my relative skill and drive and, once in college, settled on TV writer. And if that’s not a ringing un-endorsement of a profession…

So I wanted to be the best director and then, eventually, TV writer I could be. Since I fell in love with the winning ways of the basketball program UCLA stuck out immediately. Oh, and Spielberg went there. Briefly. When I finally visited the University of California at Los Angeles in the summer before my senior year, I fell hopelessly in love. The Notebook style. But I didn’t get in because I wasn’t good enough. And I had to choose my post-high school institution before I ever found out that fact.

The Christian Brothers gave me the arm around the shoulders treatment, subtly nudging me in the direction of a small liberal arts college nestled in the East Bay hills. They dangled a near full-ride scholarship like a ball club would dangle a 3-year deal below market value but with a vesting option for a fourth year to an aging player coming off a subpar year. Except I was coming off a great year and I wanted to parlay it into the University of my choice. But the draw of all that guaranteed money and an actual offer on the table prompted me to sign on the dotted line. It’s a good thing I did, of course, because I didn’t get in to UCLA.

But the joy of college never happened. Everybody pushed me towards the school they wanted me to go to because they all thought I was one type of person when, in fact, I am someone else entirely. My grandfather of all people sat me down the night before I had to decide whether or not to take the scholarship and basically said it was a deal too good to pass up. He’s never suggested any particular course of action for me (except to do the right thing), so when he decided to speak up, I couldn’t help but listen.

My college years were the worst four years of education. It was a college, not a university. The only thing I still use in my life is the discourse the school encouraged. In that way, my school distinguished itself from UCLA. A lot of people I’ve met there are very smart, book smart, most with great, easy going personalities, but conversational and ideological synthesis does not follow from those other skill sets.

Every day there dulled my ability to have enthusiasm about anything. Because of the school’s location and the community of people there, I figured anything that happened within the community happened in a vacuum. In other words, making a name for myself there had no bearing on the outside world. There was no creative community, either. And, most depressingly, from all this I realized that I was much more a #2 guy than a #1 guy.

So now I live in Los Angeles, pursuing my goal with an occasional doggedness, but more often a cold detachment. The cold detachment is a carry-over from my college days, and it has sufficiently crept into every aspect of my life, from the career to the personal. The winter time only makes the detachment greater. I blame it on the Seasonal Affective Disorder I’ve diagnosed myself with. That, or I’m just a whiner.

Because, when it all comes down to it, I’ve had it pretty good. For chrissakes, I’ve complained in this post about a four-year scholarship. I’m throw eight kinds of tantrum tonight and I don’t really know why other than that my life has not been as joyful as it once was and that I have trouble even making the best of all the great things I do have.

That inner critic undermines my successes by telling me they’re fleeting. What’s next, ass?

Inner Critic keeps the self-esteem low. It’s only a matter of time before you frak it up.

IC likes to keep the paranoia motor running. You’ll be found out soon enough.

I’d be scared if I could be, but, again with the cold detachment. Passionate rage seems easy to reach back and use, but it’s that passionate joy that I’ve found the most elusive for the past 7 years.

Making the Most of Puke.

The San Francisco Giants have had an "eventful" off-season. After assuring their fanbase that they would be focusing on younger, healthier players to fill out their 2007 roster, they've instead signed three injury-prone, 32+ year old players, and a fat, slow defensively-challenged catcher to boot. They've let their star pitcher of the past 5 seasons go to their most hated rival, and now they're involved with players so bad, so puke-inducing, that I dare not mention them on this blog, as the blog itself has a weak stomach.

So, instead of criticizing the signings, I'm going to criticize the guy pulling the trigger on the deals: Giants' GM Brian Sabean. This guy doesn't get enough shit thrown his way. He works for a California team with a laid back fanbase. These fans back management 100%. Well, frak that. Douchey McGee has gotten off way too easy.

So, without any context for those who don't know who Brian Sabean is, here are some fun facts I've fabricated to slam this guy who needs to be fired:

* Brian Sabean sees straight through talent: he knows it's only covering youth. And Sabean destroys youth.

* Brian Sabean was the first citizen charged with elderly abuse.

* Brian Sabean would let women and children die in a fire for not having enough grit and veteran savvy.

* Brian Sabean eats babies for breakfast.

* Brian Sabean's hair turned white after a night of pure ecstasy, wherein he actually swam in a pool of veteran savvy.

* Brian Sabean overpays for value meals.

* When Brian Sabean went car shopping, he dismissed every model under 30 years old.

* Brian Sabean once considered hiring pedophiles to scare young players away from the Giants, but thought better of it when he realized that the pedophiles wouldn't ask for double their market value.

* In 2010, Sabean will trade his wife, his newborn child and his French bulldog, Gritty to the White Sox for A.J. Pierzynski, not because he needs a catcher around the house, but because his wife will have maximized her potential, his baby will have developed arm problems and his dog would be too much of an unknown quantity, save for his name.

* To relax, Brian Sabean sometimes walks across the street at the end of the day to kick the tires of an SUV he has been admiring from afar. That SUV's name? You guessed it: Michael Tucker.

* Brian Sabean once mistook Marvin Benard for Willie Mays.

* Brian Sabean once fell asleep in the middle of a romantic comedy called Vlad the Heartbreaker. He's never gone back to finish it.

* Brian Sabean thought the original Star Wars was overrated and instead saw The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training 37 times that summer. He then signed the film's star, William Devane, to a 4-year, $46 million dollar contract.

Another season without a World Series.

NFL Substance Ban Lacks Substance.

Possibly the worst title I’ve ever come up with, but if you look at previous posts, you might find a worthy adversary. One of my college short screenplays was titled, Surrogate Angel, and that at least ties today’s post heading. I was inspired to write about the following bit of sports’ news:

The Saints suffered a big blow to their defense Tuesday when they found out defensive tackle Hollis Thomas, who is having a career year, is being suspended for four games because he violated the league's steroid policy due to asthma medication he takes.

[Source: ESPN.com]

Hollis, for the record, is 335 pounds and struggles to keep his weight down. He doesn’t have the bulging physique a person commonly thought to be on steroids has. No, he’s a fatty. And his asthma medication (Advair, among others) contains steroids.

So the slave owners known as the NFL has decided to suspend the guy four games.

Zero tolerance means you literally have to kill yourself to play in a football game so that red-blooded Americans can inappropriately cheer your death and use it as an example to their fat children of how to “play the game the right way.” Or something.

Never mind that Mr. Thomas is going to probably die of a massive heart attack fifteen to twenty years after he retires or that he will suffer from any number of physical ailments after giving his all to the game. Probably the effects of concussions, bad knees, and… well… anything else you can associate with being hit, taking painkillers and treating your body like a tank for 10+ years. The NFL really doesn’t give a flying shit about the health of its players, neither while in the league nor upon their retirement. They just want to ride these money trains until they derail.

Bravo, assholes.

And let me be clear about where I stand on the subject of steroids and performance enhancers in professional sports: I pretty much don’t care. Not at this point.

Oh, there was a time when I was on board with the stance that it’s cheating and it somehow takes away from watching human beings accomplish amazing things with their bodies. But the more I saw that the pros are just a business like anything else, the less concerned with the integrity of the game I became.

If owners are willing to let their players die to make money, then why shouldn’t a player do whatever he or she can do to make their own money?

Parents deride athletes for being poor role models, okay, but I really see this like actors and actresses who get plastic surgery to maintain their looks. The players are trying to maximize their earnings by keeping their productivity at a high level. Barry Bonds wants to use every last strand of his DNA to play the best baseball his body is capable of playing… so he can make a lot of money and, to a lesser extent, cement his place in the firmament of Baseball Greatness. The Giants want Bonds physical performance to put butts in the stands so’s they can get their money. Fine.

Quarterbacks become addicted to painkillers and basketball players suffer liver failure just to play the game to get their money, because the team is going to continue to profit off of their performance anyway, so they might as well do whatever they can to earn that next paycheck.

It ain’t pretty, but that’s the way it is.

But none of this argument even touches on what happened with Hollis Thomas. He’s asthmatic! He NEEDS the medication to frakking breathe! But, the NFL says you can’t use it.

The article says the league even took the information concerning the medication under advisement when formulating its ruling, and it still suspended the guy.

It’s not enough for these shitbags that guys are risking their lives so that they can jet around the globe buying up property and earning money off the work of others. No, those guys have to die.

Bad Music, Bad Writing.

Phew. Just got in under the deadline...

Now, I’m no music expert, or even a connoisseur, but I knows what I likes and I likes what I knows. Sometimes, though, when I chance a listen of the terrestrial airwaves, I am saddened by the current state of pop music. That record labels have sunk to recording what sounds like soundtracks to snuff films or abortion procedures is only the tip of the iceberg. The “talent” spewing forth is deplorable, but with the more important things in the world to concern ourselves with, perhaps discussing that “talent” is a pointless endeavor.

Nevertheless, pointlessness is 80% of blogging, and I feel obliged to service that numeric majority.

Have you ever heard of this group called Danity Kane? Their single, “Show Stopper” makes me want to cry. It is awful. Just… I lose perspicacity, I lose cohesive thought, I become angry. It is a ridiculous hip hop/club bopping song crapped out of the mouths of hacky, airbrushed, kinda pretty, but ultimately shallow girls, brought together by that Sultan of Song, Diddy.

It’s like every other goddamn hip hop song that comes out these days: it’s a lifestyle rap. Remember when rappers used to rap about the lifestyle in the ghetto, or about watching your friend get capped, or just enjoying the fact that you had a good day? Those were simpler times. More relatable, I think, too. But, now…

EVERY. LAST. FRAKKING. SONG. IS. ABOUT. BEING. COOL.

Going to the club, getting in the club, mixing it up in the club, looking good at the club, hooking up at the club, show stopping at the club, flossing at the club, depositing ball sweat at the club…

Rolling in hummer limos and bein hard, foo. You don’t even KNOW.

Here’s a snippet of the song:

Bet you ain't never seen
Chicks ridin' this clean
Louis Vuitton seats
We do it deadly
This how we keep it poppin'
Make sure that bass knockin'
So when you see us ridin'
We call it show stoppin'

And the worst of it all is that the girls sound AWFUL. Just awful. They sing this HARD song sweetly, trying to demonstrate their vocal range. They’re the type of “women” who pose in every picture ever taken of them. Even if they’re with their grandma, they try to make it MySpace-appropriate.

I am just sick of this shit. Nothing good is being contributed to the culture with this clutter. Useless art made by useless people begets useless ideas generated by kids who absorb all this.

Not only is Danity Kane demonstrating that one only need to look good to kind of succeed, but also that the ultimate goal should be popular and have everybody looking at you. Looking at you do what?

If you ask the Pussycat Dolls this question, then they’d answer, “To watch us strut up and down a runway for no reason.”

The Pussycat Dolls, like Danity Cane, exist because of reality television competitions. Pussycat Dolls came to be after some show on UPN and the latter group from MTV’s Making the Band. Both groups are the forced merger of toned bodies and pitchy, undisciplined voices to create meal tickets for lazy fraks in suits – I mean, pop groups.

I don’t know why I get so angry when I hear even a second of their song, but I do. But they’re no exception. MTV has created a show called Twenty-Four Seven, and its basically the cheap-o reality version of HBO’s Entourage, about 6 or 7 douchebags trying to make it in Hollywood.

Suffice it to say, I’m a little miffed MTV hasn’t aired a show about a singular douchebag trying to make it in Hollywood…and has his own blog.

Deep Discount DVD.

Since securing steady income eighteen months ago, I’ve developed the pricey hobby of building a DVD collection. I’ve gotten real good at finding cheap ways of adding to it as well. I’ve basically reconstructed my childhood with Knight Rider, The Simpsons and Star Trek, and I’ve made room for new classics like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Arrested Development and Battlestar Galactica.

I think that DVD collections (TV and film) have replaced book collections. In the future, when playwrights compose scenes in someone’s study, the characters will walk and talk around a large shelf of old DVDs, rather than first edition books.

The key to building your collection, of course, is to keep costs down, particularly if you plan on adding a lot all at once. I’ve found Amazon.com to be a great source of good DVD pricing thanks to their frequent sales, discounts and offers. Also, they have the Amazon marketplace, where people sell that unopened season 2 of House they got for their birthday, but were too polite to tell their grandmother (who was none too subtly hinting that he/she should go to medical school) they didn’t watch the show. That’s where I snagged season 2 for $25.00.

I’ve never found eBay to be a strong source for cheap discounts because you have to bid against others who are thinking along the same wavelength of adding to collections cheaply. And whenever there’s a Buy It Now button, the prices are invariably the same as most retail stores.

Which brings me to the retailers. Best Buy and Circuit City are pretty good for TV shows upon their initial releases. But beyond that, they can be pretty useless. The best deal I ever got at a Best Buy was seasons 1 & 2 of 24 for $20 each, but that was on Black Friday last year.

But the secret retail store that has reaped many rewards for diligence has been EB Games. They buy and sell used DVDs and they mark those prices WAY down. That’s where I purchased season one of Battlestar Galactica for $20, a set that retails on average for $44. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (typically retails between $70-$100) for $40; and my wonderful girlfriend surprised me by snagging the Simpsons season eight for $25 less than a month after its release.

So, there are deals to be found out there in the real world. The cyber world is covered in them, too. But if you’re a nerd, or want to be a nerd, and you need a vast DVD collection to convince others of said nerdiness, then consider this a helpful post on how to begin your journey towards building the Most Awesomest Collection of DVDs Ever.

Monday: The Worst Song of 2006.