Tag: entertainment

Are You Not Entertained?

What’s something people take too seriously in life?

Dated references to old films aside, today’s title refers to something I commonly observe in society. We take our entertainment very seriously. Extremely seriously. As in “Do you find this even remotely relaxing or fulfilling anymore?” seriously.

Take sports, for instance. Theoretically, sports are a form of recreation that allow us to challenge ourselves and take pleasure in pushing our bodies and minds, or, if not an athlete, to enjoy watching our favorite teams compete and experience the thrill of victory and near-defeat. It’s supposed to be fun, right?

So, why do people scream and tear out their hair and beat up other people who don’t support their own team? Why do people riot and curse and weep over what their favorite player eats for breakfast? It’s … not just a game, anymore, is it?

In fact, a quick jaunt through the Youtube comments section (horrors of horrors …) on just about any subject that supposedly falls under the category of “entertainment” yields insight into a curious phenomenon: Nobody seems to hate any given activity, hobby or franchise more than its own fandom. Fans are very grumpy characters, seemingly more entranced by how [insert subject here] has been ruined forever than taking any sort of joy in it.

Entertainment must be a very fragile thing if it takes so little to destroy it. Perhaps we humans are entitled creatures, believing that a movie or video game or sports team or car brand is only “fun” when it conforms exactly and perfectly to our own specific expectations. On an individual basis. And when it doesn’t, well …

I get irked sometimes when a favorite franchise takes a turn I don’t like. I try not to take it too seriously, if only because I have a tendency to brood over the silliest details and really don’t need anything else competing for that brooding space in my head. Life’s short. Why not just … be entertained?

***

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“

Meeting Mister Fox

So I’m walking down the street in the early dawn

And who should I meet but a cocky fox sitting on a lawn.

I ask him what he’s doing there, carefree as can be

And he replies, “I belong. This is my territory.”

I smile and shrug and wave goodbye and carry on my way.

Maybe I’ll see him again sometime, if meet him again I may.

***

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life. Sometimes, I dabble in poetry.

Smartphones

The most important invention in your lifetime is…

The smartphone. Not the cellular phone in general, but specifically the smartphone with its advanced computing capabilities, online access and instant information retrieval.

Cell phones have been around a long time, before I was born, but the smartphone came into its own during my lifetime. Funny how science fiction seems to predict these things. Star Trek had those little handheld doodads that could scan anything and tell you if somebody was sick or healthy or mindmelded by Vulcans or whatever, and nowadays we have near-identical gadgets that can scan, measure distances, forecast the weather, monitor health, take pictures, and far too many other things.

Smartphones are interesting devices because few of their features are truly new, but they are devices that can do everything at once. That’s their significance – the number of features contained within one item. All that plus instant communication via phone call, text or email. That sort of versatility and the speed with which one can look up info and immediately apply it to the situation at hand make smartphones into what I consider the most important invention developed during my lifetime.

***

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“

The Computers of Yesteryear

Write about your first computer.

The first time I ever used a computer was back in the ancient days of dial-up, GeoCities and flip phones. My parents owned a word processor. No, not a computer. A word processor. As in, an electronic box with a blank, black screen on which you could type sentences and do nothing else. No programs, no Internet, no background wallpaper. This was a simpler time.

So, there I was, a kid not even in the double digits who thought he was going to write his first novel. Never got past the second page, of course. Or I was writing backstories for my action figures and posting them on my bedroom corkboard. Either way, those were the days when I first began cutting my teeth as a writer.

My first personal computer, as in the first I actually owned, was a bigtime birthday gift from my parents. I was in sixth grade, I think. It was a ponderous contraption. Computers weren’t flat back then. Like the word processor, it was a large box filled with many arcane electronic secrets. More importantly, it came with a tower, which was the actual device doing all the processing, because these were the days when the average PC couldn’t contain all that delicious data in just one piece. It needed a second box to actually run the data, and mine needed a whole desk cabinet to be kept in.

And then there were floppy discs and compact discs. Old PCs used to have slots into which you slid the CD or floppy in order to access them. Do computers even still have slots anymore? I have no idea. What with streaming and online gaming and the Internet in general, I doubt they’re needed anymore.

Those were the days. I’m not sure what kind of days, exactly, but those were them. Just turning on a computer felt like an amazing feat accomplished. Before digital phones and instant online access, personal computers were lighthouses of knowledge and wonder. Nowadays, computers are rather mundane and even old-fashioned. But I remember.

***

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“

Ranting about Planned Obsolescence

If you could un-invent something, what would it be?

I must warn you, today is something of a rant. Take it as you will.

Planned obsolescence. Machines nowadays, especially electronics, are designed to last only a certain number of years before needing to be replaced. If I could go back in time and unmake this form of technological “innovation,” I would.

I mean, having to buy a new computer or mobile phone every few years is a hassle of money and time. I try to keep mine as long as possible, defying their gradual decline. I like things to be permanent. I like technology to be supportive, not a safety net with a big hole cut in the middle.

What happens if the phone factory collapses into rubble or all the schematics needed to make the hottest new model are lost? Then we’re stuck with old phones that will eventually no longer receive updates and stop working properly, and we won’t have a way to replace them with the new, fancy-schmancy versions. Then society collapses, and we’re all back to the Stone Age because our technology is no longer built to last. This is how Mad Max really starts, people!

… All joking aside, I really don’t like planned obsolescence. I believe it to be detrimental to technological progress and a real pain in the neck for ordinary folks. You could say that I hope it one day … becomes obsolete.

***

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“

When AI Slop Presents a Cunning Opportunity…

Here’s a business idea for the modern age.

AI looms over us all like a brooding shadow. Fears of AI replacing human-created novels, magazines, photography, illustrations and more have wormed their way into people’s minds.

“Human-created.” That gives me an idea. I bet I could do something with that.

The surge of AI content isn’t new. In fact, it is very similar to the rise of factory-made goods during and immediately after the Industrial Revolution. Mass-produced furniture, mass-produced clothing, mass-produced vehicles, mass-produced toys … The list goes on.

And now, in this present age, we have the advent of mass-produced media. AI-generated books by the hundreds. Essays written by a computer trained on patterns and Internet-scouring. Art produced in seconds by an artificial mind.

Horrific? Maybe. But if history told us something about mass production, it is that the value of bespoke goods subsequently became much, much higher.

AI slop is all the same. It blends together, united by bland, tedious styles that bear little semblance to the elaborate creativity of the human mind. That makes human-made art and writing valuable. And if AI slop becomes the norm, if large businesses make extensive use of it, than a new niche market opens up.

Bespoke entertainment. Non-AI media. The personal touch of a living person. Stories and art pieces created by human minds for human minds.

It’s not a new business. People have been publishing books for centuries. People have been drawing pictures for millennia. They have charged money for both.

But if AI content becomes the norm, then human-made content becomes rarer. Skilled employees are being laid off by big businesses in favor of replacing their skills with cheaper AI. If I was a small to medium-sized business owner, I’d be snapping up as many of those people as possible. The value of their skills is going to increase.

A suit custom-made for an individual, crafted by the hands of skilled labor, demands a higher price than a generic suit made in a factory. A custom car is more expensive than a basic model.

Imagine then, the value of a book, a magazine, a comic, a painting, a textbook that, in an age where AI-generation is the norm, has been created personally by a living, breathing person.

That’s not a fear. That’s an opportunity.

***

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“

Is There Such a Thing as Life Without Music?

What would your life be like without music?

Life without music would be insufferably boring. And, I think, it would be impossible to live life without it.

Not because we would drop dead from lack of music or lose all motivation and will, but because humans must make music. We feel rhythm and melody in everything. Nature sings: birds, wind, waves, thunder and lightning. Small wonder that man found ways to make musical sounds of his own.

For me, personally, music is a means of relaxation and inspiration. Relaxation from stress and worries, and inspiration for my imagination and writing. I have no particular taste in music; all genres are fair game. I just enjoy music as a means of processing ideas and, perhaps, of hyping myself up for a project.

Music also helps keep me sane when I’m mired in boredom or doing repetitive chores. Music is very important in my life, and I would be lesser for its absence. I think most people would.

And it’s impossible to avoid it. Music runs through my head during the day with or without headphones. It’s always there, drawn from an archive of songs and melodies. We are musical beings. People need music. I certainly do.

***

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“

TV and Nostalgia

What TV shows did you watch as a kid?

Nostalgia gets a bad rap for being a blindfold that prevents us from perceiving hard truths about our childhoods. That can be true, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I have very fond memories of my childhood that nostalgia helps keep alive, and that includes the TV shows I watched. Particularly the animated ones.

I spent many evenings with my dad watching some of our favorite cartoons: Justice League, X-Men Evolution, Samurai Jack, Teen Titans. And also one Transformers show that I can’t remember the name of (and wasn’t really all that good, but it was in the same time block, so we watched it anyway).

It was very cozy, watching TV with my dad. Television is great entertainment, but it’s somehow more meaningful when enjoyed with others. I recall those days with no small amount of wistfulness. Simpler times, for him and for me.

It’s strange how as children we take things for granted that we yearn to have back now. Saturday morning cartoons were just part of the routine. They weren’t a golden age of our lives, a precious memory to hold near and dear to our hearts. They were just … there. Fun, sure, but not precious. Not yet, anyway.

And if that’s the case, nostalgia possesses at least one positive quality: It preserves our best memories.

***

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“

My Top Ten Favorite Movies

WordPress’s daily prompt made me think long and hard today …

These are my top ten favorite movies (in no particular order):

Porco Rosso – One of Studio Ghibli’s lesser known creations, a lowkey, introspective movie set in 1930s Italy. The protagonist is an ace pilot cursed to have the face of a pig. Why? Well, symbolism abounds, as do themes of survivor’s guilt, redemption and freedom. Also beautiful flying scenes, as per Studio Ghibli’s usual standard.

The Count of Monte Cristo (2002) – A great adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’s classic tale of revenge and its consequences. Less character study and more swashbuckling action, but it’s very well-choreographed swashbuckling, and the movie has an overall more optimistic tone than the novel.

Disney’s Beauty and the Beast – I grew up with Disney and will always have a soft spot for its animated films from the 1990s, but this one is my favorite. If you had to tie me to a chair to watch a romance, make it this movie.

Coraline – And if you had to tie me to a chair to watch a spooky animated movie, make it this one. A children’s film that manages to avoid cheap jokes and talking down to its audience, and most importantly, can also be enjoyed by adults. Very bizarre and surreal in a way that still makes a lick of sense.

The Rocketeer – Good old-fashioned pulp fiction adventure, based on a comic book character that surprisingly was less than a decade old at the time. Man with jetpack fights mafia thugs and Nazis. Straightforward, upbeat, and refreshingly earnest compared to the sardonic self-commentary of many of today’s superhero films.

Stargate – Ancient aliens done right – as science fiction. Very good flick that doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, it just fills itself with likeable characters fighting an eeeeevil villain amidst great special effects. Sparked off an even better television show that ranks among my favorite TV series.

John Wick – A bit of a cheat, since I like the entire series, but I’ll stick with the first one for the purpose of this list. After a decade of jitter cam action antics, filmmakers realized that they could make stylish, creative action sequences and keep the camera steady. The action (and violence) generally takes precedence over the story, but the story that we see is actually quite poignant and painful in its humanity, as many of the best action films tend to be.

Tombstone – A manly Western starring manly men with manly mustaches. Joking aside, it’s a great film for everyone. Based on real-life events surrounding 19th-century lawman Wyatt Earp’s time in the town of Tombstone, Arizona, this film is made and memorialized by its cast. Really, really great acting all around, dialogue that sticks in your brain, and memorably tense confrontations between heroes and villains. Only in this film could the words, “Well, bye,” be made a stupendously amazing line.

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad – We’re going old school now. A 1950s fantasy flick with special effects by Ray Harryhausen, the man, the myth, the legend. Modern visual effects wouldn’t exist without him, nor half the monster designs you and I take for granted these days. The visuals are the real star here; the story is typical “Arabian Nights” fare: Sinbad the sailor fights evil sorcerer to save princess. Features a fire-breathing dragon, perpetually angry cyclops, and most famously, a swordfight with a living skeleton. This is the foundation of modern fantasy visuals as we know it, you young whippersnappers!

Hook – This movie’s premise is very bold: Tell a story about Peter Pan growing up. Sounds like a disaster on paper (and to be fair, this movie is a bit divisive, I understand), but I always enjoyed it. Robin Williams makes the film work with his acting chops, and the film is more grounded in James Barrie’s original story than you might suspect, and indeed more so than many later Peter Pan adaptations. Dustin Hoffman’s Captain Hook is a treat – even if he’s not my favorite version of Hook, he serves as a great foil to Williams. Also probably my favorite realization of Neverland on film – colorful, fantastical and like something out of a storybook.

***

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“

Delving into the Unreal: How Fantasy Helps Us Deal with Real Life

Real life is hard. Can we all agree on that? Real life is really hard to deal with. If it’s not the troubles and calamities of real life intruding on our status quo, it’s the dreary monotony of everyday activities. Going to work, washing the dishes, walking the dog. Sometimes, we just hit a rut. What to do?

People are imaginative, and there’s nothing better at firing up the creative juices then boredom.

There are people out there prone to daydreaming. They come up with whole worlds in their heads. The really ambitious ones commit those worlds to paper. Voila! A new fantasy story is created.

Fantasy helps us cope with the real world. It is a form of escapism that gives us a few precious moments away from humdrum reality, a chance to catch our breath and maybe let out a couple screams, then return to the grind. A little fantasizing is good for our mental health. Relaxation and rest is a good thing, and fantasy is a form of that. A jaunt into a made-up world where heroes always win, good triumphs over evil, magic can make food and water out of nothing, and we can fly on winged horses is just … fun. That’s the point of fantasy. Just like some people like car racing or hiking or painting or math (such people do exist), so do some enjoy fantasy because it’s just plain fun.

To deny ourselves recreation is to trap ourselves inside a metal box at the bottom of the ocean. We can’t move, can’t escape, can’t even see the light. We suffocate under the inability to exert ourselves. Our minds along with our bodies atrophy from the lack of exercise. And from the lack of challenge. Fantasy is a challenge. Fairy tales and epics challenge us to see the world in a new way and ponder how these stories match up against our own experiences. And they let us see something new, period. Don’t we humans crave novelty? Why go on vacation, if not to “get away from it all?” And what are we getting away from? The ordinary and the familiar.

Fantasy is all that writ large. It is the unfamiliar and the extraordinary. A chance to wonder: What if?

And at an even more fundamental level, fantasy taps into that all-consuming human urge to create. We all want to create something. We tinker, we write, we draw, we brainstorm, we organize, we build, we muck about. We like to make things, whether things concrete or things abstract. Fantasy is creation. It’s a powerful impulse, the urge to create, and making fantastical worlds is the perfect outlet for what, I believe, is a basic human need.

Does fantasy matter? Absolutely. We can’t resist it’s siren call. To get away from mundanity, to satisfy our basic natures, to keep ourselves sane. Fantasy is very, very important.

If you just so happen to be enjoying my blog, feel free to subscribe. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

My first book, A God Walks up to the Bar, is available on Amazon.com. Witness the modern day adventures of the Greek god Hermes in a world much like our own – and with demigods, vampires, nymphs, ogres, and magic. The myths never went away, they just learned to move on with the times. It’s a tough job, being a god!

Image: “Dave Checking out the Perseid Meteor Shower at 10,000 feet“; Dave Dugdale; Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.