Because Han Shot First, Damn It.
I’m only writing this because I’m sick of getting e-mails from the prodigal Sang S. Kim, Esq., asking why I haven’t updated in so long. You can’t find anything better to do in all of San Francisco? Jeez.
Well, two months since the last posting, and spurn finally ended its run a good month ago. Saints be praised. It was one of our better productions, with the new mixed-media presentation, but it was a hell of a road getting there. Happy to hear the positive audience reaction, though. That and lots of beer just about makes it all worthwhile.
My wife and I have since gone on our very late honeymoon, to Mexico, which was perfectly relaxing. In fact, though I’ve been back for over two weeks, I have a strange feeling that my brain jumped ship and stayed behind, and is now lounging on the beach, downing tequila and beer. The traitorous little bastard. Well, that or I’ve just grown incredibly stupid since returning, which is much more likely.
As if it wasn’t bad enough when I started hearing Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life”, the best song about heroin addiction ever, in Carnival cruise line advertisements, now I have to cry in shame whenever I hear the Ramones or the Clash advertising cars and cell phones. At least they waited till most of them were dead.
What’s new? It’s hotter than hell here in New York City – last few days have been just shy of 100 degrees along with that damned high humidity. Splitting my time at home between the air-conditioned bedroom and the extremely hot, windowless living room to get my mandatory GTA: San Andreas time in… I feel that if I neglect my little game world, all the territories I’ve won through gang warfare will be taken back by my rivals when I’m not looking. Curse you, Ballas!
By the way, everything’s better when hip-hop is added, isn’t it? Because the kids love the hip-hop.
Speaking of which, here’s today’s topic – groupthink. Something I mentioned in a previous post, I know, but I still can’t get it out of my head.
group·think
n. The act or practice of reasoning or decision-making by a group, especially when characterized by uncritical acceptance or conformity to prevailing points of view.
Name more than two or three good television shows (on network tv, HBO doesn’t count). Looking at any weekend box office, name more than one movie opening each week that looks even halfway decent.
Groupthink gave us The World According to Jim. Groupthink gave us reality television. Groupthink gave us Van Helsing, for god’s sake. Every single time a focus group pops up and decides that adding scenes containing B, C and D to movie A will make it appeal to a much wider audience, well, an angel weeps. A kitten is sacrificed. And a lot of other bad things, too. Its not that I’m demanding all film, and certainly not all television, needs to be “art”. But I seem to recall, in that somewhat distant past, when media like this used to be at least somewhat challenging. Didn’t it? Or was it always like this, and I was just too young to realize?
No, it has gotten worse. Look at the Star Wars prequels. All the great characters, all the witty banter of the first trilogy, whittled down into an easily-digestible, kid-friendly format for a new generation of sheep. And then they even had the nerve to go back and re-edit those perfectly wonderful original movies to be more suitable to the mainstream. That’s why I won’t buy that damned DVD set. Well, a few reasons really – including no cast commentary in which all the original stars get to make fun of Billy Dee Williams, and because Han shot first, damn it.
But one of the wonderful side effects of groupthink is to make us docile, because we’re never really challenged anymore. We’re stuck with bland PG-13 mush designed to be as inoffensive as possible to the widest group possible. So now Han doesn’t shoot first.
Bullsh%t! I’m going back to San Andreas and shooting people in the face.
By the way, in case you haven’t realized, I’m back in production. On a new musical entitled “Genius Famous”, written by spurn’s own sound designer and premiering at this summer’s annual NYC International Fringe Festival. God help me. God help us all.
Well, two months since the last posting, and spurn finally ended its run a good month ago. Saints be praised. It was one of our better productions, with the new mixed-media presentation, but it was a hell of a road getting there. Happy to hear the positive audience reaction, though. That and lots of beer just about makes it all worthwhile.
My wife and I have since gone on our very late honeymoon, to Mexico, which was perfectly relaxing. In fact, though I’ve been back for over two weeks, I have a strange feeling that my brain jumped ship and stayed behind, and is now lounging on the beach, downing tequila and beer. The traitorous little bastard. Well, that or I’ve just grown incredibly stupid since returning, which is much more likely.
As if it wasn’t bad enough when I started hearing Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life”, the best song about heroin addiction ever, in Carnival cruise line advertisements, now I have to cry in shame whenever I hear the Ramones or the Clash advertising cars and cell phones. At least they waited till most of them were dead.
What’s new? It’s hotter than hell here in New York City – last few days have been just shy of 100 degrees along with that damned high humidity. Splitting my time at home between the air-conditioned bedroom and the extremely hot, windowless living room to get my mandatory GTA: San Andreas time in… I feel that if I neglect my little game world, all the territories I’ve won through gang warfare will be taken back by my rivals when I’m not looking. Curse you, Ballas!
By the way, everything’s better when hip-hop is added, isn’t it? Because the kids love the hip-hop.
Speaking of which, here’s today’s topic – groupthink. Something I mentioned in a previous post, I know, but I still can’t get it out of my head.
group·think
n. The act or practice of reasoning or decision-making by a group, especially when characterized by uncritical acceptance or conformity to prevailing points of view.
Name more than two or three good television shows (on network tv, HBO doesn’t count). Looking at any weekend box office, name more than one movie opening each week that looks even halfway decent.
Groupthink gave us The World According to Jim. Groupthink gave us reality television. Groupthink gave us Van Helsing, for god’s sake. Every single time a focus group pops up and decides that adding scenes containing B, C and D to movie A will make it appeal to a much wider audience, well, an angel weeps. A kitten is sacrificed. And a lot of other bad things, too. Its not that I’m demanding all film, and certainly not all television, needs to be “art”. But I seem to recall, in that somewhat distant past, when media like this used to be at least somewhat challenging. Didn’t it? Or was it always like this, and I was just too young to realize?
No, it has gotten worse. Look at the Star Wars prequels. All the great characters, all the witty banter of the first trilogy, whittled down into an easily-digestible, kid-friendly format for a new generation of sheep. And then they even had the nerve to go back and re-edit those perfectly wonderful original movies to be more suitable to the mainstream. That’s why I won’t buy that damned DVD set. Well, a few reasons really – including no cast commentary in which all the original stars get to make fun of Billy Dee Williams, and because Han shot first, damn it.
But one of the wonderful side effects of groupthink is to make us docile, because we’re never really challenged anymore. We’re stuck with bland PG-13 mush designed to be as inoffensive as possible to the widest group possible. So now Han doesn’t shoot first.
Bullsh%t! I’m going back to San Andreas and shooting people in the face.
By the way, in case you haven’t realized, I’m back in production. On a new musical entitled “Genius Famous”, written by spurn’s own sound designer and premiering at this summer’s annual NYC International Fringe Festival. God help me. God help us all.
posted by Neil_spurn at 11:40 AM
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