tra la la scumbag circlejerk oh ho ho tee hee hee
How is a play written six years ago and set over two hundred years ago supposed to or fair to expect to address real-world violence? Anybody who can afford to go to broadway plays isn’t looking to be reminded of it, either, so it doesn’t make financial sense to incorporate, and if something wasn’t expected to make money it wouldn’t be on Broadway, which is why the one with Spiderman was able to keep getting more money smeared over it long after it should have been scrapped. Violence didn’t come into existence in May but the idea that everybody has to make a public statement and just the right one about it seems to have.
This is such a surreal statement, I cannot even tell if it is sarcastic. It almost doesn’t matter, since this is a game that cannot be won. EVERYTHING is “problematic” to a degree and it is IMPOSSIBLE to be “woke enough.” the success of hamilton paved the way for you to be able to get legitimate press for your astounding “woke”ness. I agree that it is probably primarily for rich and/or white people who want to seem “hip” by liking stuff that doesn’t have white people in it, and I am yet unconvinced that a majority who claim to even do like it. However this is definitely an example of biting the hand that feeds you, and in this case the hand apologizes for being bitten. You can’t be that big a success in the United States withOUT appealing to white people since an overwhelmingly majority still are white, however much people in The Media want to appear more skin-tonally diverse.
I said it in 2017, Mirandy is just as tri-state-area white as I am, he just happens to have ancestors from a different place and richer parents and inadvertently became a sort of mascot for this movement or whatever it is. He isn’t prepared for that because he didn’t plan on being that and it isn’t his experience. And he can’t very well pretend it is, because he is a terrible actor.
this will suffice
I am almost sad the “cats” movie is flopping so hard since I was looking forward to getting angry at it not doing that.
cats is my least favorite musical work by somebody who I think has actual musical talent. Everything about it was annoying even before Rebel Wilson had a role in it.
my stance on cats is a matter of public record, but I will repeat it anyway because I’m sick, i need help.
Starlight Express is the gayest ostensibly heterosexual love story I have ever seen. Although to be fair I haven’t tried to watch Cats yet.
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I have now listened to the “Cats” album in full and wish to apologize to Lord Andrew Webster for implying that it has a story.
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And I wish also to apologize to Jonathan Larson 20 years after his death for ever saying Rent was the most annoying musical.
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Cats is like if every song in Rent was sung-chanted by Angel and had nothing to do with the song before it.
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Cats are like THIS! And cats do THAT! That’s how life IS if you’re a CAT!
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I was embarrassed that I liked starlight express, overall, at times, but maybe I shouldn’t be since cats gets loads more respect.
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I think Starlight Express was made specifically for people who like really stupid stage musicals but didn’t like Cats for why-ever
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And also to help Andy Lloyd Lloyder replenish his stock of gold embroidered toilet paper.
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I spread my “Chess” obsession across a few years but I want to try and get Starlight Express out of my system within the week.
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I do not know what long-term psychological damage dwelling on it might be capable of.
I think Andy Pandy Webby is a substantially better composer than Stephen Sondheim, on account of his music actually having discernible tunes. If Webbo is guilty of plagiarism at least he picks good targets. But there is a reason Jesus Christ Superstar got made into a movie almost immediately and Cats took almost my entire lifetime, apart from one being a god story and the other a there is no god story. Which reminds me, christmas is tomorrow!
Gosh it’s finally here I can’t wait
I drew the sketch in 2016 during a particularly regrettable period in my life and forgot about it, then last year my younger brother was going to appear at some sort of comedy event where Artie Lange was also going to appear, so i colored and purged the uncanny valley from it in anticipation of promoting the event with this, but then the brother dropped for a reason that I wouldn’t have because gosh if somebody is PAYING me to do what i ASPIRE to do and I was sharing a venue with somebody else who made a career out of it why would I not, that would get me more respect than drawing dopey fursonas ever has, and I suddenly had no excuse to justify bringing it up again and I forgot it again. unfortunately, i remembered.
ALSO it seems that in 2017 Lange had a series of incidents which among other things have rendered his nose in a state that makes it seem perpetually pressed against a plate of glass, so as barely recognizable as this drawing was it is now quite less so, and then I suppose already had been at the time when I meant to show it. I only learned that today when debating whether to tag him in the post on instagram. I decided not to because I wanted to tag both of them and if the other guy has an instagram page it didn’t come up fast enough for me to not start getting nauseated at other people’s posts mentioning him and great bimpity frimpity look at this dumb garbage who cares it isn’t worth that much anxiety.
In other Lindy news he recently appeared without my being prepared for it in the HBO series “his dark materials,” where he portrays the character Lee Scoresby, who gets into fistfights and shoots monsters with a gun and is utterly unconvincing, and apart from that is incredibly distracting being a ubiquitous media celebrity in an ostensibly fantasy setting but fortunately only in half the episodes and not the only thing wrong with the program. One of which is uncertainty as to whom the titular “his” refers. The quantity of luminance in his materials is not a factor in my distaste for them, apart from maybe I would like his stupid beard better if it were invisible.
My opinion of whose-ever dark materials is also a matter of public record, but unlike “cats” was actually topical when I talked about it and I still couldn’t even manage a single meager “like” so there is less need to assume that was just because nobody saw the posts because I am sure someone did. if you look up related hash tags all the posts are just people who are already fans of that guy talking about how great he is on the show even though, as noted, he is usually NOT on the show and detrimental when he is. that’s probably WHY he was cast; he brings along an existing set of fans who aren’t very discerning. I am supposed to accept him as a surrogate father figure for the main character Lyra even though they hardly have any screen time together and when they do Lee is whining about having to work or demanding to be paid, which could be funny if he was funny but he isn’t. Lee Scoresby has about as much warmth as the equally nasally Enoch “Nucky” Thompson from the earlier hbo series Boardwalk Empire, which apparently loads of people watched when it was new, just nobody who I know or who knows me.
That comparison seems like a compliment since Enoch is portrayed by Steve Buscemi who a lot of people also like but Enoch is an unscrupulous gangster rather than a roguish ne’erdowell with a heart of gold.
this is a different character, i suppose it isn’t terribly important whom and that may work in my favor since the valley of uncanniness I mentioned earlier is less of a factor when you don’t know who a picture is SUPPOSED to look like.
yes I have hbo now, I am up to date on the premium channel shows that I for years resented The Media treating like everybody watched and kept up with back when i couldn’t, and now I don’t have regular cable and it is better, and apparently loads of people also are only using premium streaming television now rather than conventional broadcast services, and once again we still have no idea what each other are talking about.
but this is christmas, right? I should do something nice for someone. tying up old mental baggage so I don’t talk about it where other people can hear it is a gooder deed than I typically manage.
This sign advertising the republican primary is actually still up, but even the actual election sign only offers “cut taxes” as any indication of what this person will do and I suspect the sign’s keeper didn’t notice the difference. Although “cut taxes” is loads more information than these signs typically give.
Stefanowski is running against Ned flippin-dippin Lamont, who I complained about in 2006 as also having nothing new to say or contribute. As with the 2014 election, I do not think it matters which one of them gets in. Ned of course won the democrat gubernatorial primary on the strength of not winning the previous Connecticut election he was in for a lower office.
My brother Een produced a song parody that I don’t totally understand. It depicts Ned Lamont in a ludicrous fashion, but treats Stefanowski in a sincere and serious fashion even though he is just as much a red/blue stereotype as his opponent. And then does it to the tune of a song by someone whose prime fans are cartoonishly devoted to the opposition party. But Ian came and jump started “my” car when I was stuck in the miserable Walmart parking lot yesterday because I hate driving a car and every aspect of it exists to spite me, so I know Ian is a decent person. Would Bob Stefanowski help me get away from Walmart?
As usual, the only candidate who actually proposes anything is the one who isn’t supposed to be allowed to win, Oz Griebel, and wasn’t supposed to even be allowed to debate but slipped into one on a technicality when people running the venue were under the impression he was a great and powerful wizard.
Which is not to say I believe in Griebel, but of the three he offers something that can potentially be believed in. I don’t believe in anyone anymore who I cannot directly interact with.
I had wanted Trump to win the nomination in 2016 and gut the party because I underestimated republicans’ ability to be party members first and humans second. I also underestimated the democrats’ ability to pander and regress themselves to try and compete with that. People that get retweeted at me simultaneously say “you’re part of the problem” if you don’t vote for what you believe in and also that you’re “throwing your vote away” if you don’t vote for the sad compromise that they order you to take. I might as WELL vote for a wizard. Half these people are corrupt imbeciles, and the rest are running for office.
Ned Lamont has an unusual bonus this time in that some group has paid for and distributed sarcastic campaign signs announcing that he is “for taxes and tolls” even though only Griebel is openly in favor of tolls. They are obviously fake signs because the real Ned signs don’t say he is for anything. We only know that he is the white guy with a three letter name who is NOT going to cut taxes, and with the people I know, that might just be enough. Even though they don’t actually pay all the taxes because they get their wages in cash off the record.
I do not have a picture of these signs because I only see them when driving.
I hate driving. But I also hate having so many pictures that I cannot finish what I am writing because I want to insert them all. But I hate even more describing something that would work better if I had a picture of it. You know what I like? Lo mein. I believe in noodles.
I actually don’t mind paying for road improvements because I hate driving and would like to feel slightly less like I am going to suffer imminently every time I do it. My issue with tolls is that paying them is terrifying because it requires getting in a specific lane and having a specific amount of money and probably having somebody behind you angry at you for something beyond anybody’s control. Or you have to pay a fee to get a special automatic toll-paying brick from the government, even though the point is to help THEM get money from you more easily. I would rather mail Ned a dollar every week, and I hate mailing almost as much as I hate driving. I will vote for the candidate that will institute a statewide pneumatic tube system so I do not have to drive again.
Although the previous winner, Dan Malloy, declined to seek re-election because he was so tired of people complaining about the non-job he was doing, that gives me no hope that the next job-haver will do a better non-job.
(Ian ALSO has a song about Dan Malloy, and I like this one better because Ian sings it himself and it isn’t to the tune of something I can tell he doesn’t care about, but you wouldn’t know it without excavating it from facebook because the unaltered music from the original song that Ian sang over got it blocked on Youtube which I discovered just now. And then the video shills for some local radio dorks whom I doubt have his best interests in mind)
Grimbedly poketer, nobody complains more than people who win and get what they what.
Something that is “really popular” obviously is liked by more people than hate it. These scumbags get to smear their essence on everything while pretending to be victims.
This guy is set for life and was putting out the narrative “anyone who doesn’t like this thing that I made is a hater” in ADVANCE of it being available, –literally assuming it WOULD get popular because it was already crowdfunded for more money then I will smell in six lifetimes– and people that I KNOW are repeating this years later like that is to his credit, IN ADVANCE of whatever other thing he made more recently, even though the first thing ended up just about the most loved and inescapable heap of happy hype plopaganda relative to the amount of effort involved that may have ever existed and everyone involved has a mutually beneficial situation.
You know what happens if someone who actually is hated complains about being hated? Nothing, because people actually hate that person!
This forklogan who is only ACKNOWLEDGING THAT THIS HAPPENED is exponentially more loved than I have ever experienced! And doesn’t even watch the page, judging from its own screenshot, only leeches off it.
I don’t have a choice to not know or to form an independent opinion on the pertinent matter, which i have personally dumbed “Dintydoone” so I can pretend it is a combination of my favorite inexplicably named supermarket products that also thrive without me ever buying them. I only know it is there because I try to force myself to deal with things that I would rather not be aware of, to give an amount of consideration to the people who come to me, because I worry that avoiding what my instincts tell me are bad news makes me look like an unkind person, and my inability to function when put in that position has made me LESS kind. I don’t have a choice to simply not be interested, even though if I mention what I like I get gloated at like “ho ho I’ve never even SEEN that” like it’s an accomplishment that they haven’t, if I get acknowledged at all, which I probably won’t be. Maybe, MAYBE we are BOTH have a right to like different things. I don’t understand how this is a foreign concept. Of course our political system is preposterous: THESE are the people the candidates have to reach.
And I can’t just not use twitter because the websites that make sense were thoroughly devalued when every person who already gets what they want vacated those sites in favor of ones like this where nobody EXCEPT them can do so.
Do i overreact? Yes absolutely! This is a consequence of a life spent as a square peg trying to get through a round hole when I am actually a tea kettle, and now the culture is dictated entirely by square pegs which includes the hole which is also now square. My only hope is to avoid it entirely. I don’t mind people having their fun and their own personal false gods. They can be furries and bronies and John Balbonies but it is imperative that they be people foremost, and accept that no frivolous expenditure of time can have unanimous approval. Whatever the case I won’t beat myself up anymore for not liking enough stuff that I have no foundation on which to like, and hopefully I won’t make [as many] spiteful drawings on the topic, either.
At least the Hamilton guy, who came into and ruined a piece of my life equal in size around the same time has humility about his fame and considers that it is something of a fluke, even if his creative work comes from the perspective of the abrasively unhumble. He knows, on some level, that is garbage and only for show. I don’t know if he tries to communicate that to his fans, but he definitely wasn’t on 60 minutes 4 times warning people that there is something wrong with them if they don’t like his annoying songs. I bet he would jump start my car even if he read this first, although he might jump ON the car and sing a few lines from Man of LaMancha as punishment for my besmirching attitude.
I heard a [different] song, again, without wishing to, whose primary lyric was “i wish that i could be like the cool kids. like the cool kids.” no rhyme, just that over and over again. While this seems in conflict with “i’m a nerd and i’m cool” and thus a distinct personality type, both speak of a feeling of subjugation. “I’m not cool, I’m not good enough” & “I AM cool, other people who think they are cool actually aren’t.” People in the first group aspire to be the people in the second group. Both see themselves as nerds that society does not approve of, and both are disingenuous. If your song is on the radio and I hear it at the laundromat, you ARE the cool kids. And then if you say you are a nerd, then I have said this before.
Oh chads. Having a prefabricated message from nobody that mysteriously speaks in the first person and that is sent to every single actual person regardless of merit or attempt at it has thoroughly appeased my desire to be appreciated, and so I go out and vote for my favorite factor of purple now.
which is convenient since I literally cannot determine a thing about either of these people beyond that one is a lawyer and the other filed for bankruptcy in 2010. I have to think if somebody WANTS to be the dintdooned registrar of voters they would have a reason for it, or at the very least some piece of personal information they would want me to know before I knew they filed for bankruptcy.
(There is a brief looping SWF video here that you will not see if you are browsing on a telephone. I could make an animated gif out of it but if you saw it you might think I should not have bothered!)
Seeing my sister Salome more irrationally annoyed at the Hamilton guy than I am made my night. I had not intended to watch the Academy Award progam, and I certainly did not intend to mention Lindo McMirando again but there in the presence of the spectacle I was fascinated with it. I do not have the emotional investment in this sort of thing to complain about any other aspect of the program and nobody needs me to do that (I need me to do this).
She had to leave the room, HA HA HA HA I laughed like that for about 30 seconds. Like somebody from a comic strip or a video game.
One big slow HA after another. It looks fake to see written out but that is what happened.
It is not easy disliking so many, many things that are inescapably heralded. Having disliking company who are also not insane makes it more pleasant. I specify “not insane” because I have known some sorts whose discontent I related to up to a point, but then they let it run their lives. Although our current presidente empowers that sort of attitude, even though without existing money and influence you will never make the core contacts necessary to elevate yourself by acting like that, and will just bring pain to yourself and those around you. So then I start to think I must also be insane and that my own discontent is not valid. But it IS, sometimes, to a degree, and however unpleasant, I like it better than pretending to like stuff that I don’t. But I do not revel in it. I do not seek that which makes me miserable. It is highly adept at finding me, but this could be so much worse if I and it were both in on the scheme.
And so, this dorky little man alone on a stage rapping tough, it is hilarious how bothered we are. At least he shaved off that weird beard for the occasion. And he of the hyphenated first name was all over the broadbast despite only being nominuted for one award. The system wants him in it. I almost felt bad that he didn’t win the one award since I would have enjoyed the intensely negative reaction in here, and I worried I might have cursed him with my evil energy, like I did to Haley Joel Osment. Even though barring a Roberto Benigni-as-Pinocchio level overestimation of public adulation, he is probably going to be at every awfward show for the rest of my life. Unlike Bernigni he got scooped up by Disney, who will not tolerate challenges to their Real versions of folklore characters, and is only going to get harder to avoid. But this time, La Land La could not be overcome with regard to incessant mentions and camera time for participants, and its wretchtacular Best Picture win was what finally disgusted Sallius out of the room for good. Ha ha hee ho heh that is almost as funny, in retrospect.
Actually on that topic, recently the Disney company re-released Pinocchio and acted like that is a big deal for the 80th time, and the ad inexplicably has some ahhhhh oh oh oh song in it even though the actual film has its own songs which aren’t that. Any time there is song with a chorus saying “ahhhhhhh” or “na na na” or “oh oh oh” there is a good chance somebody will want it in a bad ad. Ads love songs with really breathy nonsense vocals
Also on that topic, but not on the topic I first alsoed on it:
I have seen news about this dork twice in my life and both times he had that same scumbag expression.
Our top story, some disembodied head guy that is probably horrid to talk to has made himself impossible to talk to
And a followup: apparently the company that owns everything was giving him money and only just realized he had that face. Gosh his middle name is “die.” Who assumed he wasn’t a corporate liability?
Who’s to blame when parties get out of hand? Who’s to blame when they get poorly planned?
I have seen people promoting 2016 as the worst year for all humanity ever on the basis of all the celebrities that got dead, such as legendary Breath-Assure pitch-man George Kennedy and Zsa Zsa Gabor, and also Donaldo Trump’s presidenty election (even though he had yet to institute any executive orders). However, there is definitely an insufferable undercurrent of hyperbole to all the commentary I observe.
Regardless, most years-in-review focused exclusively on entertainment, and tried and yet try to suggest we are in the happiest, most talented, most gol-durned glorious period of all human existence, and consequently anything we don’t like must be the worst ever. And it just isn’t true. There is just more forced happiness and more push to not criticize something that is politically aligned with you than ever.
Yes I am still irritated about stupid hamilton. But it isn’t ONLY hamilton. However, seeing hamilton’s existence in the context of the forced enthusiasm makes me disinclined to doubt myself exclusively on the basis of my tendency to doubt myself. I saw the new Star Wars movie, and I saw the one last year, and both are nice, but are either special? Not really. Although I do not necessarily think the originals were the best movies of all time, but they weren’t desperately trying to remind me of themselves. Every movie that is made now wants to be thought of as existing now in today, the ultimate point of all times.
Lord of the Rings 3, there we go, something I like that won a record setting or matching number of osc-awards. Including “Best Song” despite my not having any recollection of any singing, background or otherwise, in the film, because it only plays over the credits, which makes it a matter apart from the film, really. As if the only reason the song is there at all is to be award-eligible. I am to believe this 11-award winning film is superior to films that just won 10 even though one of the awards is for something that isn’t even IN it. You might as well give an Academy award for best preview, best red carpet premier or best bootleg back of box summary. And maybe we will once we run out of records to advertise that we broke. I liked the movie but would not call it significantly superior to the other two. My favorite part is how long it is, which is the thing other people hate! Anyway all that was 13 years ago by this point, so we need to hurry and give even more awards to La la la la Land! Only the stuff that we like NOW can have the most awards! Best La! Best Land! Best title word duplication!
Although having said that, if La La Land does not at least win the best song award, and observe it is in there TWICE, that means Sting, Justin Timberload or Lin-Manuel Miramilton is getting one, so we keep it in the family whatever happens. Breaking news, somebody I’m already tired of gets more attention! I appreciate that Sting has the one song on there that by its title does not seem to be about forced smiling optimism, and furthermore does not have a page written about it already. Also, Sting at least is old. It makes sense that I am tired of him.
Gimme a break! They only GAVE that to you because you’re already famous!
There HAS been public figure-provided resistance to La Land Land, but primarily on the basis of it being “white people” entertainment. Which it IS, and I suppose we allow that since white people can presumably “take it,” but how much of that are they required to take before it is no longer considered a “dangerous” fascist viewpoint to criticize a decidedly non-white product for not being white enough? In fact Hamilton itself expressly forbade caucasian actors from even auditioning. Because it wanted to tell a story with non-white people (ignoring the fact that in terms of personal mannerisms and skin-tone, Lindy himself, praise be upon his name, is just as white as I am (in fact I might claim I am less white than he is since I didn’t go to private kindergarten, neither of my parents are doctors and one even stole a bunch of stuff)). And fiddle-dee-doodle it is allowed to do that. The only people who go out of their ways to be offended by that are INSANE. And as somebody who had to spend the 1990s pretending I didn’t hate the Beastie Boys to keep myself sane, I can tell you their annoyance to me was not owed to them being white. It was because they were tone-deaf screeching cretins. I don’t give a barbecue if one of them is dead now or supported great causes. If you would have me believe that La “The La” Land would be a perfect movie if it had all the same dialog, same songs, same dances, same smiles, but none of the actors were white, you would be just as much part of the problem as anybody. It is fun to call stuff “white” as a joke but we ought not accept that as a valid journalistic explanation for mediocrity.
Michael Phelps won the most gold medals of anybody, which is an objective accomplishment in a skill-based venue, whom nobody wants to disqualify on basis of extreme whiteness, and I got sick of him, even. The “greatest olympian of all time” ? Not really. All he did was swim (non-synchronously), and in an artificial environment. And it seemed like he got another medal each time he did it. in contrast to pentathlon competitors who need to do five different things that have nothing to do with each other (including Show Jumping on a dingdang HORSE), or team sport competitors who need to win four lengthy games across a week, thereby preventing them from competing in anything else, to get ONE medal. And of course Phelps worked for the Wenited States, who consistently have the most money and best resources for training, and the second-largest vat from which to pull eligible competitors. They almost consistently win the most gold medals in general. Only China doesn’t have an excuse for always losing (and it DID get the most gold at least in Summer 2008). I am past past past the point of caring if an American is the best at an athletic frivolity. If Michael Phelps won ONE swimming gold medal AND a badminton gold medal, by finkeldy then I would be impressed.
But Hamilton guy acts AND writes AND composes! And he drifts into songs from “Camelot” during interviews just like I probably would! THAT should impress me, right? No, because I hate his stupid beard. (also as of 2019 I have been forced through Moana multiple times and can say with total sincerity that I think its songs are awful)
I like Game of Thrones. Is it the best tv show ever? I would not say that it was. However, I have not seen every tv show ever. And to be fair, the format was greatly limited for a very long time. The 1980s and early 1990s were dominated by syndication, which likes to be able to air episodes in any order at any time of day and it wants a huge mess of the things, while reserving the right to dump any that it doesn’t like. There was less potential money, and consequently more difficulty in procuring investment in programs with limited numbers of episodes that don’t make sense unless all are seen, one after the other. Realistically it is only valid to compare Thronegame to shows made within the past twenty years, and I haven’t seen all of them either!
But people will tell you with total doubtless confidence that it is best ever and best there ever will be, and ignore that they ever said that when the next trendy manly abusefest comes along. I think it could have been made with less cruelty, and less contrariness for the sake of being contrary. But I appreciate that it was permitted to be as cruel as it thought it needed to be. YES I watched all 60 episodes of it across a few months. But I could have lived without it. And I DID live without it for the first six years of its existence. And I am probably better for not having made any attempt to interact with the dumb fan cult around it (or anything). And also for the huge sacks of cash it would take to subscribe to the Hibbo network for ten or fewer episodes a year. I can get the dvds for free from a library! Or other ways.
There is no real fantasy in film anymore. Every one wants me to believe it is real, and filled with real people, and realer and nower than what came before it. Even when something is ludicrous from the outset, with your sharknadoes, snakes on planes and cowboys vs aliens, they are not sincere works of expression by filmmakers. They mean for you to think they are “badass” in how awful they are, like all those oafs with tv shows about them eating huge heaps of rancid meat. I remember being surprised when I learned Guy Fieri was a chef; I literally thought he was just some GUY, hence the name, who drove around shoving awful things in his mouth. And not because it is entertaining but because and I’ll have to get back to you on that. Because this is AMERICA. We don’t need to do something awful to ourselves for a reason. Once again, we have the president we deserve.
There is no fantasy in film anymore. Every one wants me to believe it is real, and filled with real people, and realer and nower than what came before it.
When the film Spider-Man was released in 2002, that was a new fast paced realistic spider-man unlike all past spidermen. Then in 2012 there was another spider-man even newer than that one. And apparently now there is a third newest spider-man and I am completely desensitized to it. What is he going to do that the other spidermen didn’t do which makes them obsolete? Is he going to save Uncle Ben? Is he going to get power by biting a spider? Is he going to skip the dumb origin story and trying to live a Normal Life for 75% of the movie and get to the point for once?
For that matter, I have completely lost track of or interest in swervy altered or updated “fairy tales.” And I had ten years ago. Every movie coming out looks like something I’ve seen before even though each one is purporting to be a new version of something I have seen before.
Just in my lifetime I have seen 3 spidermen, 5 batmen, 26 Cinderellas, 8 ghostbusters, not including extreme Ghostbusters or Filmation Ghost-hyphen-Busters, plus 4 Colonel Sanderses. None of these things function without presuming familiarity on my part.
For the last 2.5 decades solid, live action films are never rated G unless they are garbage for toddlers. Everything else must have realistic violence, abusive language, real sadness and offense emotion, and sex oh teehee.
Although I must note that the 1940 Errol Flynn feature film “The Sea Hawk,” which I inadvertently witnessed a piece of recently, is openly rated G as determined by a film review board that came into existence long after it did, despite the production showing whipped slave labor, death by musket, death by cutlass, presumed death by drowning and disdain for another nation on the basis of it being one. The British men I am meant to want to win try to board the Spanish ship by throwing Rygar grappling hooks, one of which catches a Spaniard in the neck. There is no blood but the recipient is plainly in pain and not able to get it loose. And of course all the important people are white men. Nonetheless the film is unmistakably a fantasy: everybody talks in a funny way, they are not afraid of the danger they are in and the music is jolly despite mass mutual deceasement for the parties depicted. I am meant to enjoy the depicted exploits without believing the on-screen characters share my culture, goals or fears.
It is possible older films would have been less fantasy-like if they had been permitted to do so by the standards of their times, but I think also film-goers appreciated escapism in a way that present American audiences don’t, or are not encouraged to. War to 1940s Americans wasn’t just something that other people had to deal with. Ironically of course there are American troops right now in more countries than ever. We offer this to them in lieu of medals!
Good news, you get as many gold arches as you can fit on your side of the wall!
In frak after all that, I still have not encountered, through the inadvertent channels I encounter everything else in, a solid case made FOR Clinton. Only against Trump, and in such an event people were never going to unite behind one opposition force, and trying to shame people into abandoning their alternate opposition was also never going to work. And Clinton still won the “popular” vote, because all that comes across is how popular she is and how good she is at knowing popular people. In New York and California. So make her president of New York and California. Ha ha ha I assure you the longer and bloated this post gets the less likely I am to make another!
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With regard to my freak-up last week, I think The Media owes people either impartial reporting or a clear presentation of its biases. But they tend to assume that is not necessary and that their audience is already of one mind with them. Because they have to sell advertising, and advertisers need specific targets. Television news is complete trash. It was never presented to me as: here are the facts on these candidates.” It always came across as “our candidate is cool and we’re cool and you can be cool too! plus oh oh oh she’s a lay-deh” I suppose I should have put THAT in the spiteful little comic strip but the exact sources for each of my frustrations have been difficult to determine.
If Trump is dangerous, that ought to have been reported, and reported how so, not just show the Clinton club’s latest stupid celebrity selfie stunt. I don’t understand how I become a like a pariah for refusing to support either of them, given this climate of non-information.
I realize my current stage of distrust and discomfort came about in part to riding a hype wave to electing Obama. I wasn’t closer to any of those people afterward and felt let down by the result, and I hated myself for letting myself be led. This time, I rejected the hype wave, but I still hated myself because I have so many people around me who continued to ride the hype wave that seems to be the dominant public opinion. The difference is that I hate myself based on my own choices rather than inheriting them, so this is better, I think, I hope.
I am not scared of Trump, I am scared that I have no soul. Once I sort that out I will get back to you. Obviously I am white and in Connecticut. You know I am so bent up by this I keep forgetting that I didn’t actually vote for the guy or say a single bloody thing in support of him at any point. He is a goon. Maybe I just subconsciously relate to goons. Is my personal problem the biggest threat to the country? It IS because it underlines that I want to fight almost everybody for silly reasons. But I don’t fight them and I still want to. I don’t know any white supremacists but I know loads of people who are paranoid about white supremacists and really smug about condemning them and looking conspicuously angry about them, like that’s a challenge.
Breaking: the cast of Chess has vowed to take on Mike Pence’s support for a federal flat tax if he ever comes to Sweden.
I have no recollection of ever lacking for hamilton news, but i appreciate that it recognizes its solvency and would draw a line in the sand like that, and I don’t know what a dork like Mike Pence is thinking will happen when he attends a liberal mass service like that in person, and then when he tries to walk out while it’s happening. It’s like a scene from Rent.
Why am I so obsessed with proving other people wrong who do not really have different goals than I do? Because they are proud of themselves, greater in number, back each other up and treat me poorly. I think it might come down to that, and maybe it always has. I cannot devote energy to being afraid of the president-elect since I am too preoccupied with being afraid that I have no soul. If I ever sort that out perhaps I will get back to you.
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Oh but you want to know my thoughts about the united american election, right? Statistically speaking, you probably do not!
I was writing something item by item as it happened but then afterward it turned into a different story.
People love to blame Ralph Nader for W.Bush’s election, some of them more so than they blame Bush for being awful or Gore for not being better.
So instead of doing anything to alter how the system works, we shamed people who refused to go along with it. And by gorby we did it once, we can do it again.
You can grow up to be anything in America! But don’t you dare try and vote outside these two colored boxes.
I must acknowledge that without the insincerity and corporate synergy Hillary Clinton would be more appealing to ME, but would never have gotten this far.
I relate to Hillary Clinton because nobody relates to her except when she is totally fake. She changed everything about her public demeanor to help Bill Clinton’s political career, including changing her own name. It was a political liability for a husband to have a wife who kept her original name. Although perhaps that fakeness has become natural to Hillary by now.
When all the celebrities of society, especially the terrible musicians, whose influence leaves me unable to relate to a majority of the apparent population, become synonymous with a political candidate, it is hard for me to be enthusiastic. Even if that seems fickle to you, that these things are unrelated, I say they are related. The point is that I am meant to feel like I am one with these people, and these are all people that keep me alone in groups. You preach diversity but are of one mind where culture is concerned, and I objectively dislike the most highly promoted items. beyonk, ga-ga, adel, bruce stringbean, new bon jovi, I cannot listen to this. I cannot get in on this message of “love” from people who ignore or diminish me when I love something else.
I noted around 7pm that somebody had accidentally switched ABC’s live election feed with an episode of MTV Total Request Live from 1998. I didn’t want Trump to win, but I enjoyed seeing chummy smirky news people suddenly more reserved and analytical once it appeared less inevitable that their pre-coronated Clinton was going to win. I loved seeing their stupid, stupid years of speculation turn to mush on live television. I relished seeing THEM lose. I relished seeing this alliance of overconfident scumbags uncertain they would get their way. I wasn’t getting my way whatever the case, and I am not convinced their way is best. And I say that as somebody who has felt held down and alienated by republicans my whole life. The obsession with religion, the demand that I feel a certain way for certain things, the dismissal of some forms of expression as invalid. Now both parties represent that to me. So I just want whichever one is more insufferable at present to lose, but without really wanting either to win I did not feel like I had a stake in this. But I did not vote for Trump. It wouldn’t have made a difference if I had but I would never have.
Stephen colbert announced that his election night show would be LIVE on the showtime channel. Not saying anything resembling an apology for viewers who don’t have access to Showtime. Because we who don’t buy and don’t buy INTO everything are not considered real people. Just like the Throneger Games and the Soprano show, programs that require a year’s HBO subscription to get less than one new episode per month, it is presumed that if you aren’t in the club to whom that is reasonable, you don’t matter.
The night before that, Colbert had a lengthy musical piece equating a lack of desire to vote [for Clinton, who was not named during the piece] as a lack of desire to vote at all. And of course Hamilton came out at the end to win the day with rap because hip hop always wins because nobody is allowed to not be totally into it. But thankfully it was the replacement Hamilton that is less irritating despite copying the first one’s weird anachronistic facial hair.
I can’t believe ten years ago I felt like I knew this guy. Although ten years ago I thought I knew zartan and ukuhawa and bridgeportcat and it was three more years before I thought I knew science fox and you can wager none of them are talking to me ever again (although to be fair they aren’t likely talking to each other either). Am I just getting worse? (although if you are reading this please talk to me I will call you whatever name you want those are just the ones I used to call you if I mentioned you and you can call me or roneldo or john jacob jingleheimer skrimpf if you want to). Sometimes I feel like I cannot know myself and anybody else at the same time. On the internet, anyhow
As far as I have come in 15 years, I am back at how I felt: It isn’t all about New York, and it isn’t all about Los Angeles, even if that is where all the tv comes from.
There is the old part of me that thinks “oh no, democrats are losing!” but the newer part of me that didn’t see conditions improve when democrats won is uncertain how it feels.
“What this says about our country is horrifying,” a manner of statement I have seen a bunch. What it says is that no attempt is made by democrats to appeal to people who aren’t already on their side. And republicans don’t have to because their fanbase has always been more enthusiastic about voting, with better access to doing it. And they are accustomed to voting for cartoon characters. I said almost a year ago that I hoped Trump would be nominated so the party would eat itself alive not keep him out. I underestimated their ability to get behind The Party WHATEVER the cost. Even when loads of them say they won’t, they do.
It IS depressing seeing all these people despondent on twitter and thereabouts, even though prior to then I never shared in their joy. I suppose I just don’t relate to that. I know how sadness feels. I don’t know how it feels to be moved to tears over this, but I cry over things that they would never understand.
Trump of course was accused by Theodore Cruz during the campaign of having “New York Values.” And he DOES. He lost that state but he won the states who don’t realize that putting yourself first and never admitting fault are the quintessential New York Values.
Looking back to that first picture from New York City, that sums it up. “Look, all these people in NEW YORK CITY are happy, why aren’t you? There must be something wrong with you!”
I cannot support that. BUT it was not my thinking that did this. It turns out when there are two enormous groups furious at each other, they hate you even more if you refuse to unconditionally agree with either. The “with us 100% or you’re the enemy” attitude is very w-bushy. What is funny is that people who have a problem don’t actually disagree with me, they just think I disagree with them because I am not on board their socially-mandated mourning barge, even though I never have been. I wasn’t on September 11 2001, I sure as shingles am not now with regard to a man that has not actually killed somebody, however many he has groped or bankrupted. I survived two bushes and half a Reagan, can we really say this is worse before it has even happened? There are thugs in this country, and there are thugs in France and there are thugs in Russia. There are thugs in the world. There was a thuggish racist movement in this country before Trump got involved. They probably voted for Trump. And they probably voted for Mitt flippinmitten Romney because paranoid people who think the segregated water fountain period were the good old days because they had reduced awareness of world hardship at that time compared to now have gone with republicans my entire lifetime. Trump is himself thuggish but he did not create the thugs. Why do I care about this? Because this is not something that instantly came into being, and you were not going to instantly stop it. There is loads of outrage over failure to use a solution that was not actually there.
Of course it was Trump-attituded policies that likely brought about 9/11, but then make that case, please, I want to say to people. We ought to not assume everybody has the same context as we do when it comes to things like this. Try and have some empathy even when speaking of people that you presume have none. You cannot call millions of people morons and expect them to get along with you. Unless you are Trump. I think all that “haters gonna hate” swagger which the youth supposedly espouse fits Donald to a T[rump]. He wouldn’t be a billionaire without shoving his name and face everywhere with no regard for anyone else’s feelings. He seems to me more careless than hateful. Now that he is being briefed on things he seems to be, as I expected, increasingly aware that none of his ludicrous promises are feasible, or maybe he knew all along. So those unhappy about the election can at least see how it feels when the other side gets let down by the silly stuff they believed. Guantanamo Bay Prison is still open for business, but we aren’t going to start banning all Muslim immigration either! Hip hap hoorosh. The candidate got the party in power, and the party takes over with precisely what it would have done whoever was there. We might as well vote in Dennis Rodman; he at least has been to North Korea. I don’t think President Obama has even been there.
Be sad or afraid if you are, but please do not make it a contest to be saddest or afraidest, especially at the urging of a retweet chain.
The question i need to ask: was it my job to vote for Hillary Clinton or Clinton’s job to make me want to vote for her? If I had, I would have hated myself. If I had voted as I did, for Jill Stein of the green party, but claimed I voted for Clinton to join the party on facebook, I would have hated myself. If I had actually voted for Clinton, and if everyone else who voted as I did ALSO voted for Clinton, she still would not have won, because there was not a single state that Clinton lost where the number of votes the green party got was greater than the amount Clinton lost by. Gary Johnson the Libertarian, however, took a considerably larger bite of the total, and every libertarian I ever knew –granted, just one person– was a republican otherwise.
And if you go back in time and prevent Bernie Sanders from being sabotaged and change nothing else, who knows what irrational unaccountable jiu-jutsu Trump club would have dumped on him? And then you would probably see hard corn Clinton backers going libertarian because Clinton was always the foregone conclusion and Sanders was too liberal and unrealistic.
You will believe being silently unwatched by 4 people on twitter who don’t even consider you a valid enough human to disagree with and risk realizing you don’t actually disagree with them the same day, while also receiving no input from anyone else can send somebody over the edge. I have had to repeatedly remind myself that I didn’t vote for Trump because I find myself being mentally defensive of stuff that I think people are aiming at me because they think I did even though I plainly said I voted for Stein. It is bloody absurd. This is dumber than high school, and high school was extra dumb for me.
And I figured out who they were, too, nobody who should have had any problem with me. You might think it insane that I try to determine who they are, but that helps me ascertain why they did it, and if there was anything I could have done to prevent it, or if there would be any point to, if they would just overinterpret something else later. These people, they didn’t even know me and they didn’t care to try. Except one sort of did, and still dumped me without a single word, and that hurts. It isn’t as bad as fearing for my life, but what is that life worth? This amounts to feeling: I don’t matter, and nothing I try can make me matter. Please understand, I do not relate on a mass scale. I relate personally. And how many others have not taken the step to numerically shun me but have censored me, again without checking if I meant what they thought I did, with the mute command? And who else are they doing that to? That is just dirty. That does not aid discourse or clarity. I am a real person, not an episode of Blue Bloods.
With that said, if I have not opted to follow these accounts myself, do they really owe me any level of regard? Maybe not, but I end up thinking they do since it IS to me a big deal when I do opt in like that. It means I believe in this person and their content to a degree beyond what I would by default. It means I have a desire to be close to this person in this medium. And when I give up on it, I have a reason for that also. Even if it is a stupid reason. If somebody were to ask why I could say: because I don’t like when you talk about the digestive enzyme fluid generated by people’s mouths. I should go to bed.
Perhaps this is old news in the electronic communication realm but this is the first time I could articulate exactly why it hurts me personally. This is a real issue for me right this moment. Communication barriers are important. How often is this happening every single day over dumber slights than this? And I unwatch others for fickle reasons. Like stuff nobody could ever guess. But generally it has to be personal. Sometimes I resist doing it because I think it will come across as hurtful. Is this the mindset of a hateful person? I hate to th- oh well there we go.
Maybe if I spent more time styling my toothbrush and raising awareness of the end of the alphabet I would have less time to dwell on things like this!
Middle School colon The Worst Years Of My Life might look like regressive uninspired trash but it is in fact based on the writer’s real life experience watching terrible movies about going to school.
In old bimshwel days I would look up who the actual writer was and try and make a point, but I am so detached and frazzled these days I cannot even be certain I am writing this now, which would not be good form when that writer took offense and tried to make me feel bad in my comment section.
Also, I posted this on faceboor last Sunday for some reason:
I saw the Saturday Night Live season premier for some reason I cannot wholly justify.
I think the program is in trouble when its only memorable characters, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, are just celebrity impressions and played by actors who aren’t in the cast or any other sketches.
Of course Saturday Night Live has been in trouble for about 75% of its existence, as 3000 nearly identical retrospective clip shows will remind you.
But does the present cast have any hope if all the attention, and presumably most of the money, goes to Alec flippindippin Baldwin?
Gosh is it fair to the actual credited host? Who even was that? I do not remember.
There was a sketch called “political family feud” that was just a mash of 9 different impressions with no time for a point.
And most of the camera time went to Kenan Thompson, who has been there for 13 years, and Darrel Hammond, who I guess just lives in the building now.
There was a Lin-Manuel McHamilton impression that was amusing just because they dared to mock that guy at all, but it didn’t really go anywhere and immediately afterward a notice stated that he is the host NEXT week, which means if that impression shows up again it will be in one of those character-meets-self sketches, which got old before I did, or far far worse, the impression meets real person and apologizes sketch, which should never have even happened once.
This is the kind of garbage MadTV was doing before it got cancelled. I distinctly remember a Buffy the Vampire sketch in which all these different characters had impressions done of them for one line but then just had to stand around dorkily while Buffy talked to Stuart or Ms Swan or whoever.
I realize I said television was “dead to me” a while back and it is. This means I do not watch shows on purpose and no long aspire to be on them or acknowledged by people who are through twitter. This makes an embarrassingly large difference.
I must also give credit to Bobby Moynihan, who joined the show right before I stopped deliberately watching it back in 200x or so, and 1) is also still there and 3) still hasn’t done anything I remembered afterward. The show in general is yet doing the exact same Kristen Wiig-style awkward chatter schtick it was back when I realized I wasn’t enjoying anything. Which would be fine for it if every ad on television and every movie in theaters (and likewise every ad in theaters) weren’t also doing it. And there is no sense to doing Jimmy Fallon-style no joke but the actors are laughing schtick either because he also has an equally non-innovative program on the same channel five nights a week.
Saturday Night Live’s only goal at this point is to stay on the air. It doesn’t have aspirations; it has a LEGACY, and more importantly no viable timeslot competition. It won’t die until somebody shoves a wooden stake through Lorne Michaels’ heart surrogate organ.
Oh deef what is this
Is it fair to joke about something that killed 300 people and destroyed 3000 homes? As long as it hasn’t killed anybody in the US yet, apparently.
Also apparently, it is better than my personal best. Far less depressing!
The hurricane edged me out by 0.13 points.
If you liked this, you obviously hate yourself, so here’s some stuff to help you realize you could be worse off.
You know what’s great about insurance ads? Instead of talking about their products they recycle old gags and they never get old even if they fixate on it for 30 seconds, 70 times a day for six months.
I tried drawing this person as a 40+ish year old man with a black 1980s-looking mustache but then I felt sympathy for him, which was not the point, but I couldn’t get a clear idea what stereotypical person I was angry at, so now I am not sure what it is. But I sure dwelt on this stupid thing for long enough. I need to have this away from me more then the execution needs to work. this is the sort of thing that would probably have been much funnier if I had drawn it as obnoxiously as possible in ten minutes.
Here is my base sketch to establish the concept. If I had drawn crude impressions of the idea of far side cartoons rather than directly sourcing specific ones and put blatant stupid labels on the books like “FAR SIDE LAST BOOK” instead of trying to use real covers that plenty of people familiar with The Far Side would not necessarily recognize. The cruder way it is plainly a joke, without being stated as such, and I can not be held deeply accountable for it. The eyes look less creepy because that is the natural, unnatural size I draw them at. I would not feel as ashamed putting this out somewhere and having it be ignored. The more accurate and specific something is, the harder it flops if some aspect of it is wrong. That is why John Callahan, a quadriplegic cartoonist who couldn’t draw worth a basket of tumbleweeds but was free from obsessive compulsive fears had a career and I probably won’t ever. I probably won’t die at the age of 59 from complications of a botched bedsore surgery either, but I have 26 years to dwell on what a rude thing to say that is/also become quadriplegic.
In fact that “FAR SIDE LAST BOOK” was one of the last things I changed; since I used a real cover on the other, less focal book, having the one in the center be generic looked lazy. I worked harder to make my joke less funny because I apparently would rather not look lazy than be funny, even though trying to be funny is the whole point of doing it to begin with, and it was only just barely funny. And I KNEW that but I couldn’t stop myself.
As the tentatively final version is, somebody could point out “ah HA, geico put out an ad specifically referring to a problem invented by contemporary phones, which cannot possibly have come from The Far Side.” or “ehm excuse me that is NOT the real far side panel that was used for December on the 1996 wall calendar.” I showed this to my older brother, who I only see twice a year, and whose approval I am desperate for, because he was my first idol and my last idol that still talks to me (Zartan come back, I forgive you, I forgive everyone), but who won’t look at anything I do unless I specifically show it to him, and he asked “DO they do that?” As in: DO the geico people steal old Far Side gags? Like he thought I was making a sincere political statement with this. And I had to say some waffly nonsense like no, but sort of I suppose they could maybe, like with the parrots and Tarzan and Marco Polo in the pool, you know? I felt like a profound moron.
Nobody cares that gary larson’s dinosaurs all look generic and unscientific because he doesn’t draw elaborate shading and scales and muscles on them like i would try to.
This is how autism affects me. I cannot take hints, and nobody takes mine, so I need to be as specific as possible. But I do not have the manual dexterity to be specific beyond a certain point so everything i do turns into uncanny valley mush. And by dwelling on this so hard I am doing the same thing I accuse geico of doing (outside of airing the things repeatedly forever)
Someday I will write a great book about how not to screw up. I will spend years on it, and all the advice in it will be the opposite of whatever you should do.
Here is another example. My plan was to post this on all the usual totally redundant websites with a heading in the vein of: “the REAL reason he quit the show.” Being as vague as possible, and likely not quite communicating my point, because I always over- or under-do all things. Goopness grapejuice I’ve even digressed and overdone my story about how I overdo things.
I didn’t finish this. I noticed that once I added the font it wasn’t funny to me anymore, even though the font is approximately what it ought to be. Because once the lettering is solid, the drawing looks unsolid, but the whole is solid enough that I start to wonder: why is a Broadway show using a movie poster? Is this a movie sequel TO a Broadway show? Why would that be the case? Who specifically does/should this second person look like? Is it funnier if he is billed first? Do I need to add a background now? What sort of background would it have, and would it match the anachronistically dressed person or the historically dressed person (with anachronistic hair that we don’t talk about)?
HOWEVER, this was ultimately a positive step, since drawing this turned the Hamilton guy into a joke to me, so now when I, inevitably, see him, I think it is funny rather than annoying. I can coexist with him.
I no longer need to seek refuge in the bizarre alternate universe this New York Post headline is from in which Stephen Colbert doesn’t mention Hamilton at every opportunity. Broadcast television is still dead to me, however.
Also, I went to look up lyrics for a different show on some stupid broadway site that I didn’t realize was covered with graphics detailing all the awards hamilton (and flippin dippin RENT) had won, but when I saw they used this exact same dorky publicity shot it just made me laugh.
But then I got annoyed again when I realized Hamilton Guy also had the same approximate run of credits in “In the Heights” which I had not prior to then considered or cared if it had won anything.
Also that site is trash since it didn’t have lyrics, but the link that I THOUGHT would lead to them just went to a page to BUY tracks on i-tunes, which presumes both that I will suddenly spend money without having planned in advance to do so and that I would willingly introduce parasitic organisms into my operating system other than the 24 gigabyte folder of every pathetic redundant cash-in gameboy advance rom ever released.
And THAT was already on the hard drive when I got it! I swear. Somebody else specially installed, on my request, a 1 terrorbyte drive in the computer I bought from him, in place of the 320gigabyte drive it otherwise would have had, and perhaps he was trying to show me that I didn’t need half as much space as I thought I did by half-filling it with nonsense that I still haven’t totally sorted through (I am kidding, it was only one tenth. Come back Pez, I forgive you).
Going back to the anachronistic facial hair, I can understand if the first guy just looks like that anyway, but why does the second one, taking over the role, ALSO need to have that “I forgot to use a napkin after I ate a chocolate doughnut” beard? Alexander Hamilton didn’t look like that! He also didn’t rap or refuse to be photographed in poses that don’t make his pants look as tight as possible either, so I should excuse other fantasy aspects, but I never considered that the appearance was deliberate, like when there is an anime about Julius Caesar or something and all the men look like Sephiroth and all the women look like Sailor Moon. Also all my Japanese cultural references stop at 1997, you know that. Sometimes I wish my American ones did, too!
For every Tony Award “Hamilton” wins tomorrow, I feel I should be allowed one month of not having to be aware of it in any fashion. On that note I would also like to reclassify “Under-Tale” as a Broadway show before Sunday.
If you don’t know what that is, then great. Really wonderful. I envy you. It is like Unlikely Friendship the home game. Except that I have to see junk about it constantly when dealing with the only people who will pay me for art. Essentially a dating simulation for furries, as best I can figure out without wanting to. An Earthbound-pastiche-looking-thing where your attacks inflict friendship instead of damage. Except it lies to you at first so you do regular damage and accidentally kill things you aren’t supposed to and then it remembers that forever even if you delete everything and start over. So I am told. Like that teaches you a lesson about responsibility except it doesn’t because people play video games as a respite from responsibility. And fine, there is room for that in the world, but it is not itself the world. That is like the kind of video game lope would play.
Meanwhile most of the people in my business about that have not heard of Hamilton, because that is more the domain of tv idiots. Internet shut-ins think there’s something noble about not watching a different electronic glow-box, even if all they do with theirs is watch and retweet and boost-signals or whatever. Somehow without my trying I am buried in hypey trashoganda for the sacred cows of both sides daily, and it has worn on me rather a bit the past nine months, more intensely than it previously did the past nine years, and as a consequence this thing I give birth to now is rather hopeless and misshapen.
With that said, you, by virtue of being here, have probably not heard of “Hamilton” either. Maybe you have but probably not. It is a Broadway stage musical play incorporating a bunch of people dressed like they are in the 18th century, without William “Mr Feeny” Daniels or the Quaker Oats mascot in it, dancing around on a stage rapping about it. That is all. It is a silly fantasy. I welcome people to enjoy it. But the wealth-drenched celebrities who control the television media want to promote it as an evening with God and oh your life is incomplete until you see it! But you can’t because Barack Obama and Beyonce and Chef Boyardee bought up all the tickets for years in advance because that is what is trendy now and they must keep up appearances. 60 Minutes has aired a report on it at least twice. The Jeopardy writer who makes sure there is always a clue about Les Miserables seems to have swapped them out with Alexander Hamilton trivia, and the cast of the show introduced a full category about themselves, and afterward Alexander Trebekilton reminded viewers to see it if they are ever in New York except they can’t unless they sell their house and a scalper manages to rob Prince’s vault. Stephen Colbert has mentioned it about 80 times. James Corden, whose program comes on after Colbert’s, has some recurring segment in which he drives around in a car singing karaoke with celebrities who presumably are paid for it and that’s its own sad statement on what passes for entertainment, but he did it with the Hamilton guy and then Corden was a guest on Colbert’s show and told a story almost in tears about how he was having dinner with Hamilton Guy and said he was so sad he couldn’t give Hamilton more than a Standing Ovation when he saw it live (which you can’t ever do). ABC World News tonight teased across several acts that Hamilton Guy was leaving the cast this month, and then the actual report was just that information again, plus a reminder that you’d better rush out to see him, except you can’t, ever, unless you are a driving a car he is singing karaoke in. All the tv shows that old white handicapped people that I look after watch love Hamilton, or mean to make me think they do. It’s disgusting. They did the same with The Producers, and Book of Mormon and to a lesser extent Spamalot (as it was inherently alot). Meanwhile, in the 60 Minutes report, Hamilton Guy (I think his name is Lin) himself said “I just wrote a play.” He thinks this is as stupid as I do. But he gets to be treated like Caesar and various other doomed heads of state prior to being killed so he’s not going to tell anybody to cut it out.
ALSO James Corden is hosting the Tony Award show, and it is advertised with the clip of Corden’s own show, in the car with Hamilton Guy, rapping about Hamilton, and then the voiceover says “will HAMILTON win the most awards ever?” So they’re not even pretending this isn’t a fetid self-fellating sham. I don’t even hate James Corden; I liked him in Into the Woods, despite the Disney company’s dedicated desire to present it as a serious non-musical that doesn’t conflict with their own rubbish canon of made up things they didn’t make up, plus my general fatigue with the “happily ever after OR IS IT” genre by the time that movie version got made. But I’ve had enough Jameses and Jimmies and Jams and Jellies on late night television whose foremost skill seems to be acknowledging that stuff exists. For his part, bimshwel all-star Jimmy Fallon has a recurring segment where him and celebrity guests just lip-sync to songs. He does Corden one better by not actually taking the trouble to sing the overexposed, possibly exact-same songs with his overexposed guests, and they all probably get paid eight times as much. It is a travesty that anybody should have to switch from NBC to CBS to see both of these spectacles the same evening.
And on the internet it is the same; a few highly visible dorks who get paid just to record their heads saying how great stuff is get in on some property or other and then decide to devote their existences to funding-hyping-homaging it, and all the sad empty-lived people who look to them for validation think: I will devote MY existence to this TOO. And then one day I wake up and magically there are 3000 drawings of a pillsbury-looking skeleton wearing a hooded sweatshirt standing around not doing anything. This reflects the sad emptiness of my own life as well, since I continue to be exposed to people I have no means of respecting, or who will never respect me, and without procuring myself a counter-benefit in trade.
When I was at the Department of Motor Vehicles (as seen in hype-haven’s own Zootopia!) last month I saw a child who looked to be about 12, accompanied by a parent/guardian/kidnapper, drawing Undertunders in a sideways-turned notebook. At least I think it was a notebook; half the characters were wearing horizontal striped shirts so it was hard to tell. If the Hamburglar took this opportunity to escape from prison nobody would notice. They were just standing together in a row. The adult glanced at the drawing and asked “you’re drawing Chinese kids?” Honestly when I was 12 I was drawing dumb old Kirbies and Ultroses and my parents didn’t care either, but there wasn’t an alternate support infrastructure in place encouraging me to keep on drawings those things and nothing else. The kid at chez dmv probably logged into tumblr and saw nothing else but Undertoodle for a solid month and now believes that is life’s true pursuit. And everybody always always makes sure to mention that underachievertale is copyright some mysterious figure named Toby. And before that it was ponies. And now it is tonies. The whole thing is phony (and forgive me if that left you groany). I give Alexander Hamilton credit for getting shot at the end so to limit the amount of fan-made sequel matter.
I would be surprised if you didn’t! Am I supposed to be impressed by that statement in itself? I made a thing! I drew a thing! I’ll just leave this here… I’m tired of wimpy fake-humble language. It speaks of a lack of effort, and facilitates the honoring of other lacks of effort. I saw a post like this that said “my husband made a game grumps animated!” and it had a link I disregarded. First of all why would you admit to having married someone whose most noteworthy accomplishment is that? “Game Grumps,” I have intuited –and I have to because everybody assumes everybody else already knows what they are talking about– is a pair of bearded men who are terrible at video games, and people are fans of them for some reason, and then put considerable effort into drawing cartoon versions of the men being terrible at video games. Because life has no meaning anyway so why bother faking it? Gone are the days when people smear feces on paintings and call it art. Now we smear feces on vomit and just leave it here.
I used to know a stubborn person, who, upon hearing a use of language he did not recognize, would fake giggle and then say “yeah no, that’s not a thing.” But what IS a “thing?” Calling something a thing is the definition of not defining it. You will not specify what is, so how am I to know what is not in advance of your smirking insincerity wanting to correct me? And then earlier this year I inadvertently shared a vicinity with a screening of Frozen and everybody in the movie talked like that, and some of them even fake-giggled like that.
And this is not me hating the generation after or before mine; it is people my age creating and perpetuating stuff now. People who, additionally, do not require or desire my skills or input. This culture is no dang good for me. I am coming to dislike real people merely because they like imaginary things too much. And they are happy, rather than me, so it is my problem, clearly. The time has come and lingered to stop talking about digging a hole and living in it; I may need to dig a hole and die in it if I continue being aware.
In all sincerity I don’t see the point of specially honoring something that has been honored incessantly in inappropriate venues for nearly a year already. I would prefer the Tony awards re-purposed to honor people named Tony. For example, the award for best Tony Danza would of course go to Tony Rosato.
It is that easy. Anthonies should not be permitted, however.