Just Like Oscarbait

Today, as you may be aware, I went back to school.  Honestly, as I predicted, it wasn't all that bad.  A whole week of it might be, but one day wasn't all that bad.  I was pleasantly surprised to find I didn't have to go to my longest class of the day, which was pretty awesome considering it meant I could go home. 

Of course, as the first day usually does, I'm having some pretty unhappy stress related things going on in my head and body, not the least of which is a headache.  The beginning of school tends to be like stress to an immune system: it lowers my defenses against really depressing thoughts.  The news came on and of course it was about the economy having issues still, taxes going up (which, under a governor you voted for, makes you feel pretty shitty), and Facebook being worth dozens of billions of dollars and potentially knowing what I do at night.  This is also amid my parents wanting to refinance the mortgage so we have money to like...live. 

So in my head began a little subconcious art student short film.  I narrated a trip to the gas station and Wal Mart with my parents (not out loud, of course) with my observations about the world today.  I remarked on how cold it was, especially humanity.  I wondered why I'd want to raise kids in a world as stressful as this one, and I wondered why I'd want to go another ten years myself.  I sheepishly bought myself a new 3DS game, lamenting the money I paid for it, certain I'd run out paying for gas, which, unfortunately, I needed.  That was a trip I took alone, ranting at myself to basically cool the fuck down.  A highlight of this was my speech about "power is just an illusion"...about having the right of way driving down the street.

Having spent $64 I returned home for the night.  My Dad was already surprised enough I hadn't broken into my game yet, but for some reason, I didn't want to.  It was one of the things I internally monologued about in Wal Mart...the fact that I play video games so much to escape the shitty reality I lived in.  Maybe I wanted to actually live in the moment or something, because when I returned home from the gas station, still grimacing, I took my shoes off and closed the door to my bedroom. 

My mother had brought home a great length of laminate from the school she works at.  Before we'd eaten dinner, she'd begun to cut out all of these little things she needed to cut out.  So after deciding I didn't want to play Zelda, whether the reason be a headache I didn't want exacerbated by the 3D or a philosophical bend to offset buyer's remorse or staying in reality or whatever, I went and sat down at the dining room table and started to cut some of the things out.  I was kind of surprised that nobody in the house shit a brick, honestly.

It wasn't long before my mom joined me, since it was her task anyway.  She started telling me about an awfully depressing book she read out loud to some students today.  It was about this boy who lived on a potato farm with his grandfather, which was apparently good times, of course, until his grandfather had a stroke and was bedridden forever.  So the boy harvests everything along with his dog, since their plow horse died.  Then we find out his grandfather didn't pay taxes, and without $500, they lose the farm.  So there's this dog race, and the prize for winning is, conveniently, $500 dollars.  Of course, there's this Indian fellow that wins every single year, so everyone is telling the boy to not waste his last dollars entering the race.  He still does, naturally, and gets off to a good start, maintaining his position for a good whole length of the race.  Then, within something like 100ft of the finish line, the dog fucking has a heart attack and dies.  So the Indian fellow stops, draws a line behind the kid, and tells the other racers not to cross it or they're in for a hurtin'.  He then instructs the boy to pick up his dog and cross the finish line.  The boy wins, he gets paid, the Indian gives him a puppy, and nothing is ever mentioned about the psychologicla problems the boy had later due to the memory of carrying his dog's corpse to a finish line.

Oddly enough, discussing that and cutting out these random math games my mom had laminated ended up curing me of my depression, at least for a little while afterward.  It's more or less back now, but it's odd how that little thing ended up being the highlight of my day.  It was like some stupid oscarbait movie...no action whatsoever going on, and a depressed main character that gets better due to something simple he's doing.  I went from walking through Wal Mart thinking about how awful it was that I was spending money I could use for something ten times as productive in the context of a world that's going entirely downhill, to being somewhat happy after cutting out some squares and putting them in bags.  I'd make a movie out of it, honestly, except I can't remember too much of my monologuing/narration, other than imagining Wal Mart as a ghost town in a TRULY downtrodden economy, and a little girl and an older man standing in front of the little machines by the exit picking something out.  "Sometimes it's the little things," I said to myself.

It's not a Lauren-sized story that's going to change the course of my life, but today was something I would like to remember as time goes on.  It's not a big story, but a little one, just for fun, that's at least interesting.  It's not a four-star billion dollar major novel event.  In the scheme of things, it's just a little art school film that also happens to be a story that's entirely true and ultimately unexciting.  Sometimes that's just right.

At Break's End

One of my least favorite times of the year are the days leading up to a return to school.  I tremble at the very thought of having to do homework or worry about projects, especially when they're already stacking up before the semester even starts.  This semester sees me driving to school five days a week, something I've never done, and honestly I have no idea how I'm paying for gas for so many trips out to Towson.  Plus this means waking up early and traffic and well, you can see how this might make my head feel.

So I've decided to do something I haven't before and hope to turn into a tradition.  I'm going to summarize my break and pretty much list all of the things I've done during it with a little bit of commentary.  Maybe even worse than actually going back to school is the revelation that I didn't actually do anything over break.  That usually is never true, and herein I'm going to prove it.  I have done  a bunch of things over break, and while they haven't translated into anything, they sure are something.  So here we go.

Right out of the gate I made a 20 minute Christmas Special that eventually required a bit of video-editing on my part.  I managed to make it pretty awesome, honestly, and I definitely consider it one of my cooler vlogs.

My break included the recording of eight episodes (actually 12, since I did 3 more a day after this was posted) of my Fire Emblem LP, and the posting of nine (actually ten) new episodes on my YouTube page.  This number was only not larger because my father has been home sleeping over the past week, and I quite honestly just couldn't be myself without worrying about waking him up.  My college schedule mostly allows for me to record every day if need me, so my Fire Emblem LP will be continuing pretty well as long as my Dad's erratic work schedule permits.  While no episode has garnered record highs, it's nice to know I'm still working on something.  I also gained a total of 4 subscribers in January.

Where will the future take us?

My fiction writing was pretty slow over break, and I'll admit, I'm pretty disappointed about that.  I wrote a few snippets of my space series, and a mock-up first page of an entry in my large series, MageBoy.  My biggest success was a short story inspired by The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.  It was an 11 page climactic battle scene that featured two characters with more backstory than the one-shot showed.  I hope to continue the series as time goes on, since I love the Pregnant Badass protagonist and an underlying idea I came up with. 

On the gaming front, I beat Skyward Sword, and reviewed it, which was a bonus.  I also bought a 3DS, which is cool.  I wish I'd have played a little more instead of having watched so many LPs.  Of course, I've been trying to pick up a new habit of watching LPs while I'm on a treadmill, but it isn't sticking quite so well as I'd like.  I'd love to starting doing it more consistently though, since that's a good way to multitask. I have to learn some consistency with my activities.

Of course, I did do that in some places.  About a week and a half ago, I constituted to post a blog every day until break ended in order to break the record for how many posts I could do in a month, and here I am posting the one that will put me over.  This will make the 15th post I've made over break, which is cool.  I figure there are about 30 days in a month, so it's kind of pathetic I can only post on 8 of them or whatever, so I challenged myself, and I did it. 

While the quality of posts varied, I'm quite proud of myself, and proud of this blog, even though it's mostly viewed by Russian robots.  It's good to write and it's good to talk.  I'd have to say my favorite posts were My Skyward Sword Review, for the amount of detail I put into it, My Psychological look at Let's Plays, because it was interesting, My musings on Media Darling, since they're a fun topic in my history, and The Two-Part Across the Sea Epic, because Lauren's story is one of the biggest and most potent in my life thus far, and telling that story was a very worthy ending of my blog challenge.  Call it a season finale, so to speak. 

This is, of course, without mentioning the highlight of my trip, the oh so epic Adventure to MagFest! which was basically the impetus to a good portion of the things I ended up doing over break.  To follow up on it, I did eventually cameo in a Breaking NCS video (below), and that got me 3 subscribers on YouTube, which is pretty nice.  And of course, I got to meet NintendoCapriSun, which was exciting, but could've been made better through planning.  Planning is just what I'm already starting to do.  MagFest 11 has been announced for January 3-6, 2013, so provided the world doesn't end before then, you can bet I'll be mustering up my Spiral Power for another trip to National Harbor, most likely with a full party of friends in tow, and possibly for multiple days so I can actually hang out with NCS and play games and stuff.  Next year I can actually play Mario Kart with all of them too, since I bought a 3DS.  Like I said, everything has history...including my 3DS' color.  I got it in Flame Red to represent the fires of adventure that burned in my soul when I went to MagFest and saw all of those 3DSs there.

Speaking of that fire, I'm hoping it doesn't go out any time soon.  One of the best things I did over break was keeping up with Gurren Lagann, a show that really does raise my fighting spirit.  Indeed, I believe I'll have to watch a highlight reel or something tomorrow so that I can face the coming of school with the unprecedented bravery I showed several times over break.  The fact that I've stuck with Gurren Lagann for this long is pretty impressive, considering my phases generally last about two weeks or so.  I can only hope it can continue to inspire me in the future (even my resolve to make milkshakes over break was fueled in part by Gurren Lagann, and now I'm on this quest to invent a flavor called "The Spiral Shake").

So honestly, that's about it.  I didn't do as much as I could have, I admit, but what I did do can't be counted as nothing.  January is a month of beginnings anyway, being the first month of the year and all.  If this is the first month, I want the rest to be increasingly better.  I want to do at least 10 blog posts a month, keep going with my LP, and increasing the amount I'm writing, even as school goes on.  Every time school approaches, I play with the notion of quitting, and only don't because I don't have anything else going on in my life, even though my school life is pretty scattered and riddled with amilessness. So really I think my goal is just to get myself to a point where I'm at least working on my own devices enough to where dedicating all my time to it actually means I'm dedicating all my time to it.  That's a ways off though, honestly...but if I use January as a starting point and continue to do better than this month, I'll definitely find myself getting closer.

See...my life is much like a drill...little by little, I evolve past who I was before.  Little by little, I dig my tunnel, and invite those who wish to follow it to come with me.  It may take a while to reach the surface...but when I do, the whole world will be opened up to me, and that's when I can aim my drill towards the heavens.

JUST WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM?

-Eric

1/28/2012

Across the Sea: The Road More Traveled

This is Part 2 of a larger story, if this is news to you, you might want to make sure of read Across the Sea: The Untold Story to make sure you have all the background I want you too.  If you're just browsing, go ahead and scroll down and read the entry before this one, you odd time-traveler you.


I'll give it to you straight.  I never got with Lauren.  In fact, just a few days into summer vacation I called her up during a break in Driver's Ed to find out she was hanging out with the guy that would become her boyfriend soon thereafter.  I was kind of okay with it really.  I had a very passive regret about it, sure, but it was one of the more peaceful letdowns I've ever had.  Despite having made resolutions to hang out with each other over the summer, we never did.  That was kind of disappointing.

Even more disappointing was the fact that we didn't have any classes together Junior year.  We had a few of the same, yeah, but not together.  We really made an impressive effort to stay friends despite only seeing each other once or twice during the day.  She even came to one of band's shows, on what I came to find out was her 16th birthday.  Appropriately, I proceeded to serenade the hell out of her before a new song I'd written about exactly how our school made me feel.  It was little things like that, you know, singing Happy Birthday, that in hindsight tells me I actually did like her to some degree.  You tend to get brave with people you like.

I came to realize what an interesting relationship I had with Lauren.  We had this innate mutual trust of one another, and I feel like I just acted different towards her.  We were more like two people who had been friends for many years rather than just one.  She didn't respond to things like other people did, and even weirder, it was a mutual trait.  She was a friend you could tell pretty much anything, and likewise, they would tell you anything.  I wasn't so great at giving advice back then, but at least I knew when to say I had nothing.  There's not really a good word for it, since I wasn't into the whole "parallel universe existences" thing at the time. 

We competed a bit too, or at least she did subconciously since she sometimes reminded me when I did better than her.  I only occasionally heard about her successes.  More often I heard about the fallout from those successes, which came largely in the form of stress from people urging her to act on her successes in a particular direction in which she had little interest.  I think it was her personality and ability to do hard work that made them talk, in addition to the intensity of the success in question.  She never admitted it, but her abilities, with the exception of our English class, were well above mine.  This was solidified when she scored ground breakingly well on the PSATs.  That should have been my cue that hard work and perseverance in the face of doubt will fling you to the moon, but yeah, I'm no less of a slacker now than I was three years ago. 

Our high school was really a stressful place that made academic acheivement a must.  In some ways, it paid off.  In high school though, you don't know that it will pay off, since you haven't finished anything yet.  Stress was at its highest once winter break ended and the AP Exams, tests given as an opportunity for high school students to earn college credit, were in the same year you were.  Things only begin to let up in the middle of May, after the exams are over.  Finally, at least one sigh of relief could be breathed.  If you took two or more AP classes, it meant the rest of the year was going to be fairly easy, so weight was lifted for Lauren and I.  My band had had a show late in May, and since she ended up not being able to make it, I was supposed to get her a DVD of it...you know, since I could.

All of this begs the question...whatever happened to Pinkerton?  Well, quite simply, I'd moved on to other music and other albums.  Across the Sea was this silly little thing I used to think a long time ago.  My eyes had been on other girls all year.  Pinkerton was only something I listened to if I was depressed.

Okay, I'll give it to you straight.  I didn't listen to Pinkerton like before until June 1st, 2009.  On May 30, 2009, Lauren killed herself.

I didn't find out until the morning of June 1st, when I walked into school like everything was normal, and wondering what was going on when everyone around was crying.  Being on the low end of the social totem pole and thus near impervious to most gossip, I had no idea what was going on until I got it from the teacher.  I actually made it through school fine.  It was when I went home and listened to Pinkerton that it hit me.

I got a little upset during No Other One, and I was adding to my journal at the time to talk about my views on the event.  And then Across the Sea came on, and I made it through the first verse fine.  The chorus hit me like a fucking freight train though.  "Why are you so far away from me?  I need help and you're way across the sea."  Those are the lyrics in the chorus.  Lauren was farther away than she'd ever been, and I needed her help more than ever, and I had no idea why.  I sobbed my way through that song, feeling the crashes of guitar during the bridge, and quickly changing the words in the breakdown from "It's all your fault, mama, it's all your fault," to "It's all your fault, Lauren, it's all your fault." 

I never hated her though.  I just blamed her for the intense emotions I was feeling at the time.  I didn't blame her for what she did, because, I reasoned, I kind of wanted to do the same thing myself.  That was a theme in my thoughts and writings over the next few days, "It should have been me.  They had every reason to take me over her."  I knew why she did it, but I couldn't understand it.  I couldn't imagine her or anyone going that far now that it had actually happened.  Suicide was always just something you played around with to go to the extreme and back in your head. 

Needless to say, this was a huge event in my life.  Lauren was always so different from everyone else I'd ever met.  She was the most attentive person to me ever.  She was the first and sometimes the only to wish me a happy birthday, or to notice a new haircut.  Who was going to do it now?  And damn, i never did get her that DVD.  I was in good company though, since so many people were affected by what happened.  I wanted nothing more than to be there for them, so I was, and any chance I got I wanted to say something about my friend, so I did.  I could go on for volumes about what happened in those early June days, and in fact I have most of the time period written down in a notebook, so I'm not going to go into what suicide feels like right now.

There was still that song, Across the Sea though, and Lauren's death lit the song right up.  The chorus alone made its association with Lauren clear enough, but there was even more to it.  Anything about being Japanese in the song can be attributed to the idea of something being foreign, just like the way she made me feel when she was no longer in my life.  I spoke to starts like I was speaking to someone from Japan.  She, for whatever reason, wanted to know about me and my hobbies, and always mentioned things like my birthday.  In the second verse, Rivers goes on to talk about the very stationary his Japanese admirer wrote her letter on, and he gets a little obsessive, mulling over it many times.  The relation there is obvious.  I still have our facebook conversations archived, and if I ever lost them, I'd be pretty damn unhappy.  The verse ends with "and curse myself for being across the sea," and while I always cursed myself for being unable to confess how I really really felt about her, this line now has a double meaning as "and curse myself for not coming with you, or doing something to prevent you from leaving in the first place."

Then there's another chorus, and that breakdown, that epic breakdown that still represents the same thing and always will: the raw turmoil that tossed me around like a ship on waves.  The following lyrics abour Rivers trying to be a monk are kind of like me as a kid, really perfect and well behaved.  I keep the line "you see mom, I'm a good little boy" because well, my mother and I viewed the situation very very differently.  She was worried I'd follow suit, and while I kept saying I wanted to (in secret of course, so she wouldn't have known unless she effectively hijacked my diary) I always knew I had neither the guts nor the tools.  I wanted to keep feeling bad after Lauren died.  It's a weird magnetic effect that pulls you down when something like this happens.  You don't want to feel happy because then you'd think you haven't paid your dues or whatever.  So that line was always a testament of that scrape I had with my mom, which was, as I said earlier, all Lauren's fault for making me feel so intensely.

The last verse was the fight for normalcy that goes on inside a person trying to recover from something like this, though it also fits for someone who's looking to get big things out of love.  "So you send me your love from all around the world, as if I could live on words and dreams and a million screams oh, how I need a hand in mine to feel," however, has a ring to it that can also speak to the fact that anything less than the person coming back to life will not take the feelings away.  I had words from her, and I had dreams about her afterward, but I never had a hand in mine to feel...not that I would have anyway, since I hadn't before, but it's likely I would have went for something like that to make sure what I was feeling was real.  Even the "send me your love" line has relevance, since Lauren managed to have two friends that weren't even in the U.S.  Those who know me will grin at the fact that those two friends were from Canada and England.  That's right folks, everything has history.

Of course, I have to admit, a lot of this lyrical analysis is fairly modern.  It's all true, yes, but it's rare that I ever focus so intensely on lyrics.  No, Across the Sea captures my head perfectly on the topic.  Throughout my past, many songs have been attributed to old flames and people who've passed through my life, but Across the Sea has the strongest link to any person whatsoever, and that's partially because it just FEELS right, which is my musical bottom line.  You can sing whatever you want, but if the sound makes me feel the proper way, that's how I'll think about this song.

Back when I first heard it, I thought it was weird that I'd picked such a random song to associate with Lauren.  She's still not Japanese or anything, sure, but now there doesn't seem to be any song that fits her better.  Maybe it is just those lines in the chorus that get shouted out loud and are so true it hurts that makes it all fall into place, or maybe it is that the bridge and breakdown all perfectly nail the feel of an emotional rollercoaster.  Or maybe it has to do with a line I purposefully overlooked.  "I've got your letter, you've got my song." 

That's one line that certainly HAS changed, since no such song existed in mid-2008 when I first heard Across the Sea.  Arguably, by June 1st 2009, there was.  It was either Happy Birthday, or...well...the unfortunately ironic song I played afterward.  After everything changed, I didn't recognize either of those, and so, largely due to Across the Sea, I set out to write a song to exchange for her letter (which I guess are the memories and literal facebook messages I have from her).  Ironically, I'd written a song (or at least, a few lyrics) on May 30th called "Chasing Angels" which was weirdly about being alone.  But I set out to write something that would capture those feelings and say what everyone needed to.  I knew exactly the style I wanted to write in: full on Pinkerton.  And that's how the song Greatest Girl came to be.  Looking at it...it basically does one thing: everything that Across the Sea doesn't.

It's not that I couldn't tell Lauren's story, or at least, my story about Lauren, without Across the Sea, but to me, that's a different story altogether.  This is the story of the song, not the one it only augments.  It just so happens that this song tells its story in such a way that the proper attention is demanded of it.  Though I will sometimes talk of the friend who changed my life forever, this song is often left out of that story, even though it was the thing that really hit me and spawned all that I've written here.  Across the Sea has effectively ceased being a song for me, and has instead become a symbol of my memories of my friend, Lauren. 

Ladies and gentlemen....weezer.

Across the Sea: The Untold Story

2008 was kind of an oddly dark year for me.  School was getting harder, I still wasn't finding love or anything (and made some really dumbass decisions that prevented me from doing so), and though the band was strong, we kept having issues with our rhythm guitarist and had no idea when he'd quit the band.  I guess that being said, it's no coincidence that this was the year I obtained Pinkerton, weezer's 1996 album that's often hailed as being emo before emo was cool.  Also it didn't suck.

I can almost put an exact date on when I got the thing too.  Well, of course I can since I got it the same day The Red Album came out, June 3, 2008, which seems about right since school can't have ended.  The only reason I know that school can't have ended is that there's a person that I associate Pinkerton with, and I have an incredibly vivid memory of her and I sitting on top of the desks in Art Class (which reminds me of another memory I have of watching her face as the teacher failed several times to draw a circle) and her listening to this CD I made of my band for another guy.  Pinkerton is relevant because that was what I was listening to that day with the portable CD player she was using at that minute.

Anyway, the affection I had for this girl, Lauren, was really odd for me, since it wasn't straight up at all.  I was still sort of used to "see hot girl, realize or make up something good about her, swoon over her like Romeo on Valentine's Day."  Lauren was different though.  For one, she didn't fit the everyday definition of "hot."  She was quite a big bigger than I was, and had more rounded features rather than some svelte hot chick.  She was not, and I hate this word because it's brutish, ugly, but again, she wasn't ugly, at all, by any means.  On top of this she didn't seem like the type to date or anything either.  That and distance that tend to make me back off and reserve my feelings for people. 

The thing that impressed about Lauren was her personality.  Brazen, up front, and ballsy.  She was going to tell it like it was, even when no one else was going to.  She didn't have any fear, it seemed, which is totally the anithesis of me.  Plus, all of this came with a fantastic wit.  When I first sort of met her, I remember shaking my head at that personality.  In one class, she was called "Your Majesty" and that seemed like the total, self-inflating ego that I was growing very averse to.  Lauren was more of a Kamina though.  Though she was undoubtedly intelligent and capable of performing any academic feat she wanted, her outspoken manner concealed someone who didn't quite believe in herself.  It was something I saw in myself too.  She took her failures and shortcomings very very seriously, and once a problem began in her head, it never seemed to let go.

But back to Pinkerton, which was really just a timing thing.  It's a great album, full of Rivers Cuomo's rawest, darkest emotions.  For a young guy who can't find anyone to like him, Pinkerton is the Bible.  It tells stories of hopelessness, potential delirium and the effects of constant rejection, among other things.  For anyone who wanted to curl up and let it all out, Pinkerton was the way they could do it.  It's a blast of emotion the likes of which can be found no where else in music.  It really is emo done right.

So naturally, on principle, thoughts about Lauren mingled in with these songs.  She became the girl from No Other One, the thing I shouldn't bother with, the person who was a lot like me in El Scorcho, the random lesbian that was impossible to get in Pink Triangle, and the person who I was falling for.  Most of all though, she was an 18 year old girl who lived in a small city in Japan, way across the sea.  I think that when I got really brave, I once had her listen to the song and told her that it made me think of her.  Naturally, she pointed out that she wasn't Japanese, and for whatever reason, that didn't stop me. 

Of course, I was much like the main character in the song still.  I was still thousands of miles away, only wondering what this girl who was befriending me was actually like.  The sea epic vibe of the whole thing (and honestly, the fill in this song is one of the best musical depictions of the sea I've ever encountered) kinda fit the new grounds I was at least looking at emotionally.  Of course, I wasn't thinking about this psychological point of view back then.  Back then I was only thinking about whether or not I actually liked this girl, because despite it all, I thought I had a shot with her if it was what I really wanted.

So there really was no rhyme or reason to why I associated Lauren with Across the Sea more than any other song on Pinkerton.  The main point of the song was there, yes, and even then I cleverly phrased my explanation of the song in my head as "maybe across a county is just too far away" in the cute way I always used to do.  For whatever reason, it was my favorite song on the album, and it just happened to be the one I related to her most.  That's how it is, and anyone who's ever had developing feelings for another person knows it.  There really aren't reasons for it, they just are.  To this day I think about Lauren when I hear that song, and how far away she is, kind of like back then. 

With all the certainty of a meek youth, I really was a Cuomoesque kind of guy, minus the sweaters of the Pinkerton Years.  On the outside, I was very very reserved, not outspoken at all, but on the inside there was this sea epic going on.  Better still, Pinkerton was music, a medium through which I was learning to express myself, so it quickly became the best thing ever...a part of me, like some of your favorite albums do.  So not only does Pinkerton tell a story about whatever Rivers Cuomo wrote about in the 1990s, but also a story about my life in 2008.  It tells about a time when the going got rough and I didn't want to get going.  It told a story about an internal battle I was having about whether or not I should risk having my heart broken by a girl who might not even be interested in the prospect that I was.  It was also about the girl herself, who avoided being captured by anyone song on the album, and had to settle for one that wasn't quite right.  That's the beauty of dissonance though, especially in music.  You take something that isn't quite right and make it work just because you feel it's so. 

Still, more specifically than the album, Across the Sea is a special song.  It's the one that popped, just like I said.  I don't know why or how, but that song is about a girl that Rivers Cuomo hadn't met and lived in Japan, yet at the same time it's about a girl who lived within a half hour of me and went to my school.  I had class with her, I saw her every day, and she was my friend.  For whatever reason, there seemed to be this sea between us, that ultimately was probably one I made with my indecisiveness.  But the chorus asks Why...Why are you so far away from me?  I didn't know.  I had no idea what was holding me back from a love that could have been, and that I only started to hint at.  I remember only gaining confidence at the very very end of the school year, you know, right before we'd stop seeing each other every day. 

So a word to the wise...take a chance.  Row row, fight the power, and make it across the sea.  Who knows what history you may make in doing so. 

UU Mock Interview

Even though it's been 3 years since his rocking days, Eric McAwesome has not been all that quiet.  While it may not be music, it's certain that he, under the name SgtDrFunk, is up to something, and Utube United sat down to find out what.

UU: Thank you for sitting down with us.

SDF: No problem.  I don't get to say it enough, but I really enjoy interviews or whatever.  It's like talking to yourself except...with someone else. [laughs]

UU: That seems to be the theme these days.  So what are you working on now?

SDF: Oh God, everything I can really.  Well, not exactly.  I don't want to sound like I'm keeping myself too busy but uh...yeah, I'm trying a few things.  There's the YouTube, there's the blog...and I recently have been feeling the urge to get back into music too.

UU: Back into music huh?

SDF: Yeah well, for most of 2011 I was out of it.  I did a little in the summer and then my musical inclinations just flatlined.  It was the first time I'd really let it do that since I started playing.  But now I sort of feel the urge.  I don't trust myself to act out on it though, so who knows.  The blog and the youtube are really keeping me interested right now.

UU: So let's say for a moment you were to make a full return to music.  What would it be like?

SDF: Honestly, I have no idea.  I'd  love to be in a band that does short, stupid punk songs.  On the other hand, I'd love to be in an arena rock band like AMNW again.  I'd also be happy in a band playing anime and video game covers.  The Japanese kick some ass in the music department.

UU: Coming back into reality, what's the big project?

SDF: I wish I had a definitive answer.  I guess my Lets Play of Fire Emblem really.  It's the only thing with continuity that's actually being worked on somewhat consistently.  It might be on hiatus for a few days more, but yeah, that's definitely what I'm working on right now.  My blog is a little more random, even though I'm in the middle of a challenge to break my old monthly post record.  As far as novels or anything like that goes, I'm not doing anything with consistency right now.  I'd love to be, but at the same time I'm okay with what I am doing right now.  At least with my blog and youtube I'm putting myself out there.

UU: And here we are in this fictional interview.

SDF: Whoa man, don't go getting all meta on me know! [laughs]  What are you referring to?

UU: Didn't you say somewhere that your blog was getting taken over by Russian robots or something?

SDF: I only said it because it's true.  Yeah, a lot of my referrals for my blog are spam sites.  I don't know if I'd rather have them or not since, you know, they're my biggest source of views.  That's kinda depressing, yeah, but still.  [laughs] I'd take real people any day, of course.  I mean, sometimes I don't write or make something for that moment.  When I make something, it lets me be comfortable.  if I died tomorrow, there'd be plenty of me left to explore, you know? 

UU: Die tomorrow?  That's fairly bleak.

SDF: But it could happen.  One thing I always like to say to myself when I think about keeping healthy and stuff...trying to live longer, is "and then some drunken asshole t-bones you and your counted calories are all over the street!"  Granted, i hope on my treadmill more often now, I'm not about to start doing all this shit to live longer and healthier.  For all the time you gain, you lose some gaining it.  I'd rather make something in that time.  I mean, I guess it's kind of depressing, since there'd be a lot more "what could have been."

UU: Right.  So assuming you don't actually die tomorrow, what's next?

SDF: Well, I'm back in school soon, no fighting that, so I don't know what kind of thing I'll get into, but things will probably be slow for a week or two.  Again, My LPs are kind of my priority right now, but I'm not averse at all to anything creative taking me over.  And hey, if there are a few interviews for whatever reason, cool, I don't mind bein narcissistic every once in a while.

The Most Unfortunately Ironic Band Name Ever

Back in the summer of 2007, my band Ask Me Next Week was preparing for a show in November.  This was our first legitimate show out, and after being in the basement for a year, we were damn well aiming to be the best.  The thing was, we were billed as playing with a band called Media Darling (okay originally it was New Tokyo, but I will huge the historian that knew different before reading this parenthetical), who, from their Myspace, looked pretty legit.  Naturally, I wanted to hate them.  I wanted to be worse than their pro-sounding recording let on.  As is typical of quite a few things I try really hard to hate, I'd fallen in love with them by the time the show came around.

Of course, by the time the show came around, Media Darling had been reduced to Joe Teague, and I still remember him saying "because Brian is on some island somewhere."  So it was just this very tall guy with an acoustic guitar playing between us and another band.  Joe Teague was 28, so that put him a good 13 years ahead of us.  He was there with drummer Billy Hartsock, who was quite a bit younger.  We actually have it on video, them watching us from the side, and you can see them nodding occasionally rocking out.  Joe famously ran into the play area to join me on the chorus of Green Day's "Welcome to Paradise."  That began a pretty interesting friendship.

Joe's band, Media Darling, was comprised of himself on guitar and vocals, Billy on drums, Dan on bass, and Brian on guitar in their original lineup.  Joe had gotten a bit of a fifteen seconds of fame a few years ago in his old band "Supergiant MD."  He'd done a little bit of touring, and played with a few bands that were now huge (as I recall, they played with Fall Out Boy in Baltimore bar, and often said "All Time Low came to SuperGiant shows before they had pubes!").  Supergiant MD was one of the harbingers of the pop punk wave that swept over the world in the late '00s, except they were doing it earlier.  Media Darling, in my opinion, put an excellent twist on that pop punk formula, adding in some more arena rock tendencies and more sophisticated rhythms. 

I swear this sounds nothing like this now.

In fact, it was after hearing Media Darling that my brain sat on a metaphorical toilet until Gurly on the Run came out in its entirety.  It's true, Ask Me Next Week's flagship song was also its second (Punkeye being the first), and it was a blatant ripoff of Media Darling's style.  I always wanted them to cover it, and sadly they never did.  Ask Me Next Week not only went on to cover one of their songs (at a show I sadly do not have on tape), but covered Supergiant MD's biggest song, "Secondhand Skyline," delighting friends of the band, since they could get Joe's drunk ass up on stage for some memories of the good ol' days.  There was even an excellent time where Joe, Brian, new bassist Bryan, new drummer Sam and...probably someone else all got on stage and sang with us.  Fucking drunkards.

There were two things I remember a lot about Media Darling shows.  The first was that I wanted to rock out as hard as possible at them.  I treated them like they were fucking Green Day up there because God dammit that's how I wanted my audience to act.  The second was the amount of cans and bottles that ended up at their feet at the end of the show.  These guys could put away alchohol. especially their second bassist, Bryan (y used for differentiation purposes).  I guess it was part of my naive youth to believe all that energy was their own.  Luckily I never let it get in the way of enjoying the show, and I don't think I ever saw them put on a bad one, even when we played with them in 19 degree weather down in the boonies.  Actually, I have incredibly fond memories of that show.

What do you know, a song about drinking! (This one's for you, Cat!)

Most shows that Ask Me Next Week playwed with Media Darling were the only ones we could go to due to our ages at the time, but there were a few others that we went just to see.  While members often of the "oh I'll try and make it" kind when coming to our shows, they did make it to some, and interacted with us youngsters on a few other occasions too.  I had Joe show up at one of my last birthday parties, I remember Brian stopping in for a practice ("A new band is like a new girlfriend," he said of one of our guitarists going rogue at the time), and quite fondly, a game of laser tag.  I think they liked having a group of younger guys that they could imprint on, and indeed they did.  It's no mistake that Joe did AMNW's first real recording ever, and the solo he improvised and put into the song is the one that eventually made it onto the EP.  The song?  Gurly on the Run, of course.  I like to believe that, in return for all the influence we allowed them, Joe tried keeping the band together for us.

They went through a great deal of changes though.  A few months into 2008, Dan and Brian quit the band (eventually forming Younger Years) which was a shame since they were both good players, and ultimately, I would realize, what gave Media Darling their unique sound.  This was exacerbated when Billy left the band.  That was sort of when I knew things were going to be terribly different.  Billy was more our age, but even so he kicked major ass on the drums.  Watching him do fills at shows was always something that would be chat worthy on the way home.  The most notable of the replacements were Bryan and Ryan (seriously, Joe needed to know some guys with different names) on bass and guitar respectively.  Bryan was form SuperGiant, and Ryan was from Joe's previous band New Tokyo.  When I heard this, I thought for sure that they'd go back to their pop punk roots, and I had no desire for them to join the ranks of the generic bands I'd come to loathe since they were all over Baltimore.

"Pity Not Payment"- one of the first songs with 3/4 of the band changed.

Fortunately, they did an excellent job of maintaining their uniqueness, and some of that second-era stuff was some of my favorites.  This was back in the days of Myspace, mind you, so naturally I downloaded almost every song as they put it out.  To this day I think I'm only missing one or two original songs.  It was always fun when a new version of "Tonight Anyone" or "State of the Scene" came out, and the format made following their evolution easy and interesting. 

I think their general lack of success took its toll on them though, especially Joe, who'd come so close before.  Joe was often cited to have "I am the band" tendencies by people who left the band, which I'm only just now finding ironic, since AMNW basically broke up over the same thing.  The question of who has power in a band is a topic for a different day, but the idea that the guy who writes the songs, sings, and plays an instrument should have more power was an idea that Joe and I came to share.  Anyway, I'm not sure what broke the latest incarnation of Media Darling up, but needless to say they disappeared for a little while.

Or maybe they didn't.  Honestly, they fell off of my radar for a while after Joe overhauled the band and took it back to its punk roots and advertised as such.  This is the era I don't have many songs from, and I really regret not snagging them when I had the chance, or at least listening to them so I could remember them.  I'm pretty certain this phase was short lived, and they dropped off the radar again like a school-smart girl on facebook that doesn't know what she wants.

They came back in late 2009 with The Tuesday Night EP, which was interesting since it brought back Dan on bass and had two old songs on it.  Listening to it was weird though.  Joe had gone through a pretty rough time recently, as I understand it, and as usual that came up in the music.  His voice was much gruffer on this go-round, and the lyrical content was much darker ("I'm over you, I'm under the rafters").  As well done as this EP was, and despite the fact that their live show still seemed intact, this was the last incarnation of Media Darling that made music. 

Joe went solo and acoustic for a while (AMNW had actually broken up by the time Media Darling returned for the last time, so when he did this AMNW's drummer actually joined him in the acoustic effort).  Dan and Brian are still in Younger Years.  Billy is a firefighter.  I actually came across a video on Dan's Youtube called "O! Billy saves Baltimore," and it's a silent video of a news story where fire fighters are fighting a big fire and there's a long shot of Billy's face.  It was really weird and touching for me.  Joe's actually in a band called "Kid Gloves" now, who actually kind of sound like Media Darling, now that I listen to them on facebook.

Wake up to this song.  Do it.

Still, Media Darling is always the project that's going to be in my head.  They had every right to make it big.  They had a unique sound.  They had a great live show.  They helped youngins like us get into the music scene.  They were the reason I started believing in local bands as "real" music like I do, because these guys were on par creatively with people who were getting signed and making money off of the shit everyone in Baltimore besides AMNW was doing.  In this town in my day, you had to be pop punk, screamo, or some combination of the two to attract anything.  I latched on to Media Darling not only because of the opportunities it provided (and the easy merch and behind the scenes stuff), but because I actually freaking loved the band.  It was unfortunate that while they were my role models for live shows and good original songs, they were also my first example of how the music world is cruel, and even the best of bands can end up in the ditch.

Playing with Darkness

There always seems to be this strange thing that happens when I get into some new story.  I enjoy it, first and foremost, I get into the music, and then I find myself smitten with whatever villain or morally ambiguous character I may have found within it.  Then I realize I'm listening to their theme in the soundtrack more than the other songs, and I'm continuing an interesting trend that's been occurring since I was a very young lad.

You see, in my childhood years, on Halloween, I didn't always go as a hero, particularly where Star Wars was concerned.  That was a big deal, since Star Wars was huge with me.  First I was Darth Vader, then when Episode I came out I was Darth Maul, and when Episode II came out I was Jango Fett, even as Obi-Wan Kenobi became my familiar.  By the time Episode III came out, I think I was just about done dressing up for Halloween, but nevertheless, I understood Anakin Skywalker better than most people.

In fact it was not too long beforehand that I created a villain of my own named Saith McIfer.  Now, I'd made villains before, certainly, but the difference was the Saith was essentially the main character of his story, and furthermore, he was me.  Saith was endowed with the powers of the devil himself, known as the power "to do what ever he wanted."  So perhaps more than anything, Saith was just a manifestation of my budding...social repression.  Plenty of people have their own Saiths, I'd say, since he was basically a form of me that was bound by neither typical moral values nor the laws of physics.  Saith had a weakness though, and it was love, but not in the traditional sense.  He gave the girl he loved power, even though she always had power over him, and she ended up betraying him.  This is essentially how he lost in the end, since her abandonment of him drove him into seriousness.

He's one of the most endearing characters I've ever created, aside from MageBoy, who's an interesting case.  He started out the purest form of hero, but over time grew more and more ambiguous, even not counting the story in which he arbitrarily became evil.  Even now it is my desire to portray him as largely neutral instead of inevitably good in the main story I'm working on.  Many of my heroes tend to be this way in fact. 

What does that say about me then, that I tend to sympathize and side with villains?  Could mean I'm destined to be one myself, who knows?  I've always had this odd theory that I'm some Chosen One or something, bound to alter the course of the human race, and I've sort of seen it coming together all my life.  In truth, if my role in life is to then play the antagonist, I am satisfied doing so.  Of course, this is all philosophical blithering nonsense.

It can really be explained with good reasoning.  Villains are easy to admire because quite simply there are fewer rules imposed on them, and for the story to have good tension, they must be given the advantage at some point, putting them in a position of some power.  Power is something that tempts everyone.  In quite a few cases, this power allows the villain to simply have a much better time in their role than their heroic counterparts.  Seeing a person uninhibited and having a ball challenging the hero is fun.  Even the more serious ones tend to exude an air of cool confidence, which is another quality that is admirable, and well placed if the hero doesn't have some MacGuffin or other.

On a real world level, villains also tend to have cooler, more intricate designs.  Armor, spikes, trendy blacks and flowing capes, or suits, on the other hand.  When they're not large and in charge, they tend to be cool, suave, attractive people, or truly disheveled individuals who stick out for their pure oddity.  On top of this you have the music that follows them.  For whatever reason, villainous leitmotifs tend to simply be more awesome.  The Imperial March is arguably more well known than the original theme itself.  The Pirates of the Caribbean series is a frequent offender with this. 

A good story is difficult to make without a villain to twist it and turn it, and they can have a very diverse range of temperments.  Is he/she pure chaotic evil bent on ending creation and only stoppable by the proper application of specific force, or is he/she a character that grows and acts as a cool, handsome foil to the hero that is only as dangerous as the hero allows?  You could have the same situation, two different villains, and watch the end result be vastly different each time.  Granted, heroes work much the same way, since you could easily have one with less than perfect morals.  Villains still have the advantage of authority, however.  At some point, you can bet they're going to be a threat, and stack all the odds they can against their hero.  Though many are destined to lose, it is the implacable power and hopelessness that a villain brings to the table that allows the hero to have a sweet victory in the first place.

Let's Play Anti-Piracy

If you are a member of the internet at large, you no doubt know that things have gotten pretty loud recently.  Laws aimed at blocking our rights on the internet seem to be popping up with startling regularity (though to me this only begs the questions "how many times have bills like this come in the past without us knowing at all?).  Many a internet denizen have already voiced their opinions and shared their stories, so honestly I'm not going to be going on a full on rant about it.  After all, I ranted about SOPA back in December, before it was cool.

This is more about something I've seemed to notice, and it focuses on the Let's Play community.  Let's Plays are a rather new form of entertainment even by internet standards, so watching it grow is very very interesting.  I think this contributes the to the trend I've seen regarding it.  Let's Plays seem to have a very odd immunity to piracy.  I'd be willing to wager they bring in more profit than your average pirated album does with the "sampling encourages buying" theory at work.

Honestly, the reason behind this is a no-brainer.  A CD you just listen to, and movies and TV shows you just watched.  Video games, meanwhile, are a different breed.  They must be played, and while every player will experience the same story, they will not do so in the same way.  Video games are kind of like football: you're in the same place with the same techniques and methods at your disposal, but each instance or game is massively different (not to mention that both tend to be serious business and cause massive, massive rage).  You couldn't just watch one game of football and be satisfied for your whole life (unless you're me or my mom) just because you've seen it once.  Football is an infinite phenomena.  I'd be willing to bet that part of the reason it's secretly so addicting to people is because each game is unique.  I mean hell, why DO they do the same exact thing every year?

Dammit, some guy I don't even know did something bad! I'm so mad!

I digress though, video games are even different because they put you in control (and thus the raging is more justified...I love reminding my Dad about this).  In that way, they're a marriage of media entertainment and the good ol' days...you know, circa cavemen seeing who can throw stones the fartherst or Romans seeing who can cut the other guy into the most parts.  It's really a brilliant medium, and as with all brilliant forms of entertainment, it has a due following. 

That being said, it's easy to see why Let's Plays aren't just some style of Youtube entertainment.  While you could certainly see a video of a guy hitting his head on the side of a pool while diving in and want to do it yourself, video games are much simpler and arguably more fun.  So sure, we see chuggaaconroy play Pikmin 2, but we can also do that for ourselves and still feel like we're experiencing it for the first time, plot twists aside.

Okay, I digress, I'm STILL too afraid to play this level.

It always interests me when I see comments on Lets Play videos in which people list what games they've bought due to the person they're watching.  It's kind of surprising what the rate is.  This is especially evident when I look at myself.  Every single game I've bought since last summer outside of Dragon Ball Z The Legacy of Goku II was due to a Let's Player, and I'm not sure a Let's Play has gone by without me thinking "hmm, I really want to play this game now."  It's an odd sensation that becomes downright mysterious when you realize it applies to games you've already played for hours and hours.

This is another place where Let's Plays differ from typical entertainment.  They're built entirely on community.  They are made by people who feel the same way about games as their audience, and those feelings are at the very center of a Let's Play.  This isn't just people playing games.  This is people talking about playing games.  When you think of it that way, it's stupid really.  Why on Earth would you spend sixty hours watching a person play a game that you could just put in your own system and play?  Why indeed.  I think a lot of the time we watch just because we relate.  If they're playing a game I own, I'm always interested in what they'll say about some part of it, or what unlucky fate might befall them.  The addiction comes in when you hear they're personal stories mixed in with ones about the game itself and you become emotionally invested in this person and start to care for them as a human being.

After 1000 videos of bathroom jokes, we feel his joy!

I've even been avoiding the sheer accessibility of Let's Plays.  Anyone can do it.  Chuggaa and NCS were very normal people before turning on a capture card and acquiring millions of views.  I've started doing them with little more than what I've got on my laptop, granted I don't get all that many views.  For some, LPs are just inaccessible enough, however, that they still only watch.  After all, notoriety is still laregly based on luck and sometimes equipment for good quality videos is a little out of reach or tempermental.  You know something is a legitimate form of entertainment when everyone can do it, but only a few get famous on it.

Getting back to the anti-piracy end of this, video games themselves are still hard to pirate.  Sure, emulators come to mind, but these don't really work for newer games, and gameplay is sacrificed on older ones, so it's not like any other media where the only thing that matters is how it looks or sounds.  So when an LPer does a newer game, it will inevitably almost completely immune to piracy, and instead raise sales for game companies.  This works in a similar way for older games with remakes.  Besides, watching an LP doesn't give you the full experience of the game in question since there's someone yapping all over it.  It's just like when my neighbor used to invite me over to play a game, play the game himself with me watching, letting me play for ten minutes before "showing me how to do something cool" and proceeding to play until I had to leave.  Even when that happened, I still wanted to play the damn game when I got home.

I really wish I had some numbers for you on the "Let's Plays make people buy the game" bit of this.  I do know for a fact that Plants vs Zombies got a nice sales boost when NintendoCapriSun started LPing it because its chart status was all over the comments.  I think a lot of people notice it too, and I hope that someone like Congress would notice too, if the legality of Let's Plays ever came into question.  Not holding my breath on that one, but I have spoken my peace.  Let's Plays are a breed apart, that's for sure, and seem to propel more people into being consumers than any older types of media.  Even to someone like me, who still believes in buying CDs over MP3s, the effect is staggering.  After all, I went on a full on QUEST to get a game that Chuggaaconroy was LPing, and I went on an even bigger one to meet the average Joes behind my favorite Lets Plays. 

While copyrighted content may be an integral part of this type of media, it certainly isn't the whole picture.  No LP would be complete without its visuals, and yet, watching a game is certainly not the same as actually playing it.  This is why Let's Plays are such an interesting combination of media, and one I've become particularly smitten with.  If anything, LPs are more of a "second opinion" on video games rather than pirated media.  Their dependence on community and users, which combine to creat their accessibility (there are no corporate-sponsored LPers, or ones that are "signed" to the parody-ready degree that musicians and actors are), should put them on a creative level away from claims of piracy, in the same way that covers, karaoke, and parody should be.  You can take away those videos with nothing but a picture and music (as long as it's not of Japanese music that's unavailable in the US, the filesharing of which I fully support) but you can't take away my LPs and the people who have made them an endearing new form of entertainment.

See, even I can do it!  Do you love me yet?  No?  Okay...

Eriquiel 40:03

The above picture is just the picture I have in my mind, and will have in my mind all night.  That being said, that picture and its theatrical context should queue your mind up for how I want this post to go.  If you are now reading this in Samuel L Jackson's voice, then it has worked exceedingly well.  If you aren't, then start now, even though we're going to talk about something completely irrelevant to Pulp Fiction.

In one week, I'm going to be one sad mother fucker.  It's going to be the day before college starts up again, and no matter what time or what break it is, I always get this awful feeling beforehand.  It's odd because out of all the people that go to college, I got far less worries than most of them, yet I worry a whole lot more.  I'm always thinking about college and all that I should be doing for it.  Even on break not a day goes by when I think about what's going to happen when I get back in school.  I've evolved past thinking about how much time I'm going to spend studying or working on papers and homework.  No, now I think about how much I'm going to worry about all those things.

Not even that holds water, however, since I finish things efficiently in shorter order than most people, and I don't tend to do it at the literal last minute.  What's more is that I generally do very well on assignments too.  Last semester was my most kickass semester ever, with me getting hundreds on more tests than ever.  Who's to say that trend won't continue?  In all probability, it won't change that much since previous semesters were by no means "bad" whatsoever.  In college, I've never gotten any less than a B.

On top of that, I generally only go to college for very short periods of time during the day.  Granted, this is my first semester where I'm going five days a week and all of them are in the morning.  That is legitimately a drag, and getting up early every single day to go to class that won't last all that long will actually be pretty annoying, especially for a commuter like me.    Other than that, however, not all that much is changing, and chances are the workload will at least be similar in nature to last semester and the ones prior. 

Yet, despite all this, I still feel like a whiny bitch about going back to school.  I still have some fear that it's going to completely take me over and prevent me from actually doing anything I like to do.  Most of those things I don't end up actually doing anyway, whether I'm in school or not, so once again it doesn't even seem to matter.  No matter what I do, I always feel like I want to be Marvin when it comes time to get ready to go back to school.  There always seems to be so much to do and that one miss will have me slipping all over myself forever.

Yes, THAT Marvin.

When it comes down to it, I guess I have all the same problems as everybody else.  I stress myself out more than I need to, especially when I don't need to.  If I just stopped doing that, everything could fall into place properly, namely my creative endeavors.  The thought always crosses my mind to just quit school entirely, but I know that then a different set of worries will replace the ones I had about school.  Were my creative endeavors more profitable, there'd be no contest.

Yet, here I am.  I've actually done a little more than I think I do sometimes, with this blog and my Youtube.  Both of those things are things that people can and do get paid for.  You can get paid for making videos and paid for writing blogs, which is part of the reason I got into both, and neither of them have happened for me.  I'm doing the same thing others are doing, but I'm not getting the benefits.  Funny little world.  Alas, that's how it rolls.

I wish I could quit though.  An alternative to finiancial security as a way out of college is pure balls.  If I were ballsy, i could just get out and plow through any lifestyle I could, gaining experience along the way.  That's something I'd love to do.  Get out there and have a bunch of MagFest-like adventures that actually have a deeper meaning for me.  I'd love to be a walk-the-Earth type of person and gain inspiration from that, but worrywart ol me couldn't handle it, not by a long shot.  I'd love to be able just to take a time out and be able to really clear my mind, but it wouldn't happen.  I couldn't get it clear if I took a cup of bleach to it.  Worrying about stuff must be some sort of weird survival tactic my particular species of human has.  Either way, it sure beats the hell out of me, and the coming of school is something I'm still not looking forward to thanks to it.  I got the Sunday Blues a week early.

Oh and what did all this have to do with Pulp Fiction?  Well, partially, it was meant to be kind of like Jules' final speech, reflecting on recent events and making an enlightened decision based on them.  I don't think I got there here.  In context though, I can't blame myself, since some truly wacky things happened as I tried to write this post...I'm talking like...full on BSODing for a few minutes here.  Maybe the revelation will come later.  Or maybe I'll just edit it in when it's not 2 in the morning after some totally crazy things.

Why Tradition Bad?

Recently I read an article about last names.  The writer was a woman, talking about hyphenated last names, and at first I thought it was just kind of an interesting read...until she started going into why she gave her baby one and the word "sexist" became involved.  These sorts of things always cause car crashes in my head, largely because I tend not to be a conservative up until feminism becomes involved.  Then I struggle with whether or not I'm actually a hater of women's rights, because somewhere in the counterargument that goes on in my head the phrase "I'm all for women having equality and everything..." always comes up, even after I discover I'm vehemently against whatever the article I read was just talking about.

After a long internal debate, however, I'm starting to think I'm okay with this one.  Last names, after all, have nothing to do with rights.  In the grand scheme of things, they're an afterthought, and up until debates like this they didn't seem to be a thought at all.  It's one of those things that always was for whatever reason.  It's a tradition that the female takes the last name of the male she's marrying.  Thirty years ago, you would have heard nothing otherwise, but now, for whatever reason, that's sexist.  I wonder how many feminists are also communists (not that there's anything wrong with communists either) since they believe in everything being absolutely equal, no matter how much space on the paper it takes. 

I just feel like stuff like this is petty.  Why make an issue out of something that most people ignore and have ignored?  Why is America suddenly not free just because we typically give children their father's last name?  It must be horrible in third world countries, where they all do that all the time without a choice.  So on the overarching theme, there's certainly that to consider.

Talking directly about the article (which I'll link to at the end) is a bit of a lost cause, since the author more or less refers to everyone who opposes her view on names as people who don't think women should vote either.  Looking at that, there's nothing to get riled up because it reveals this author to be a tad extreme, but I still wish to make a case for the opposing side.  All that the article means is that I can be disjointed, a little extreme, and not entirely sure why I support the position I do.

Maybe it's because I'm a male, but I just don't see what the big deal is about a female changing their names when they get married.  Your last name changing does not absolve you of your accomplishments whatsoever, and those that really care will continue to follow and respect you.  If you want to get really into it, that name change could be a show of humility and committment, the latter of which tends to be a shallow construct these days (and unlike last names, the divorce rate has some serious negative effects).  Do we remember the maiden names of some of the great married women of history?  They're interesting, yes, but overall, their names have no less powerful.  Their merits were still accreditted to them, whether their husbands were famous or not.

Then there's the issue of the children, which was the base of this whole topic.  When everyone has two last names, the world becomes exponentially more confusing.  The answer hyphen parents tend to give when asked about their kids marrying is "they can decide."  This is something I'm actually starting to have a problem with, because this is becoming the answer to everything lately.  Children can now decide their gender, sexuality, their career, high school, college, pronouns...it's a long list, and adding a last name to that would be strenuous.  It's not a simple decision either, since choosing one over the other could look massively nepotistic.  Youths already have a metric ton of soul searching to do when they come of age...believe me, I've spent a good few years doing it, and am still doing it to this day.  With my slow decision-making, deciding a name would be just plain awful.  It's something I'm glad was decided for me when I came into the world.

The world needs some things to be set in stone.  If you give a kid a slate that's entirely blank, they're going to make more mistakes than they even realize.  There needs to be a few things that just aren't made into an issue or a choice, because there are so many to face already.  Back on the topic at hand, I can even understand if the male wants to take the female's last name, but pick one.  Don't make your kids choose.

When deciding who should take who's name though, I want to choose being simple again.  Precedents were important for George Washington as the first president of the United States, and they're important elsewhere too.  Unless something is inefficient, there's nothing wrong with doing things as always (if it ain't broke don't fix it).  Having the same last name is one of the few things left that differentiates a married couple from a nonmarried couple, and doing the same thing from generation to generation creates continuity.  And of course, it's true, the idea of the shifting hands is romantic.  The idea that your heritage is dynamic is just plain interesting when you consider that someday you may have a different last name and enter into someone else's timeline.  It's weird to think that a child would only be part of a moment in time instead of a long stream of time.  There's just no history behind a hyphenated name; as parents are not actually blood related to each other, their combined last name will exist only for their family, and only for a brief moment in time unless their children marry people who taken on both of their last names and keep none of their own.  It doesnt matter what happens then...somewhere down the line, someone's history gets lost.

Dynamism in women, I've noted throughout the years, is a spectacular thing that men do not get to be proud of.  As they cannot bear children and the precedent is not to change their last name, men will undergo far less changes than a woman will, especially in body.  Of course, without that female dynamism, they can't procreate either, and their name cannot go on.  The way it is now, men are potentially one being, for in the same way a woman's maiden name is a symbol of their father, a man's last name is a symbol of his, and a manifestation of the fact that the man is to carry on his father's name.  In a way, he's forced to be his father through name.  He is not made to change it, and honestly there's pressure on him to try and make the name continue on.  There's issues on both sides, as always.

I don't know, this seems to be yet another thing I'm blowing out of proportion.  I admit I'm pretty good at making out of molehills, and a lot of the time it's fun, but when someone takes themselves seriously, it's kind of unnerving.  This is granted as some people's idea of fun is prodding at the things they've realized people have been subtly conditioned to believe since they were born.  That's always amusing for me, since I like to believe I came out okay on many fronts with my upbringing, even though it was rife with preconceptions that my parents and teachers had no idea they were programming me with.  That's what they start to teach you in college after all: everything you never questioned was arbitrarily given to you...ironically, just like your last name. 

Tradition is, by and large, not a bad thing, and neither are norms and to some degree, stereotypes.  All of these things are social constructs made by man for no reason other than to organize everything intellectually, but nevertheless there was a method to the madness, however ancient.  Sticking with conventions that have existed since before your parents were born is not necessarily an infringement of your rights.  I'm not saying that long ago it was okay that someone couldn't vote based on their parent's inability to do so.  I'm saying your grandmother was proud to take her husband's name.  Fricking proud (bonus points if he was a war veteran), and it was probably because she just loved him that much.  And him?  Freaking proud that she'd take on his name because he loved her that much.  If you ask me, that's one of the big problems with this whole thing: people are more worried about the conventions that surround love than the love itself.  The love is what's eternal anyway.  If, as a mother, you believe your child is going to forget their mother's heritage just because your last name isn't in theirs somewhere...well, maybe you should have spent more time loving the kid than how much "freedom" they had.


This is the article that got me fired up for this topic.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tessa-blake/kids-hyphenated-last-names_b_1215191.html?ref=parents

The Inhabitants of Dreamworld

Call me a fish philosopher, but I believe that when we enter dreams, we enter a dimension that runs precisely parallel to the one we wake up to every day.  It's not always the same dimension, but it's any one but this one.  I spend a lot of time thinking about such things, and honestly, since dreams are a difficult thing to study, there's little evidence against any crack theory.  Who's to say our consciousness does not enter into some other world or existence while it's not in this one?  Sure, in the end, this is the existence it comes back to, because this is the one to which it is assigned...which offers a fair explanation as to why you can't quite do everything in dreams that you can do in the real world.  I really wish i'd forget that when faced with a serial killer or some zombies. 

I, for one, am usually pretty good at remembering bits and pieces of my dreams...which tend to be epics.  They say you only remember about 10% of your dream, so to put mine into perspective can be done easily by saying I can sometimes write several paragraphs about dreams I've just had.  Even if I can't remember a dream, the feeling is still there.  All of a sudden I'll be thinking about someone I haven't seen in months, or I'll be feeling particularly close to someone.  One of the most awkward feelings in the world was having a dream where I had sex with a hot girl at school, only to go into school the next morning and realize she still had no idea I existed.  I've always wanted to write a song ambitiously titled "If Only You Knew What I Did to You Last Night."

Perhaps more deeply lamentable however, are the dreams that are much more subtle about these kinds of people, putting you into friendship, or even worse, contact at all.  I had a dream the other night about a girl I haven't talked to since high school ended, and in fact she unceremoniously un-friended me on facebook that fall, even though I'd done nothing wrong.  In the dream, we weren't friends.  In fact, she was a total jerk in the beginning.  By the end, I think, I showed some sort of fortitude and I think we became amicable again, which was cool.  I woke up and discovered we hadn't talked at all though, and realizing you're back at square one after a golden opportunity is a bit of a downer.  You want something that simple to be true.  The dreams where I'm a girl or whatever are negligible because I can accept that the events of the dream were in a ver far flung parallel universe.  Granted, those are the ones I'd like to be in most.

Dreams tend to be very interesting versions of our world, where we are presented with a unique set of challenges that couldn't occur normally.  The girl in my dream isn't likely to appear anywhere near me at the present time, so there's no way of knowing how she'd actually act today.  Even if she were like she was in the dream, I'd find it way more interesting than a normal trip to a restaurant.  In this way, even bad dreams are sometimes preferable to the real world, simply because they introduce a person or situation from your past or present that wouldn't occur to you normally.  All of a sudden you wake up and you miss someone.  You've shared an experience with them that they know nothing about.  That's the sad truth of it.  Personally, I'd love to know every single time I appear in someone's dream.  I want to know if fate or whatever is trying to bring people to me, or that there is a parallel universe or dimension that lines up with one I've visited in a dream.  It's kind of funny how even though I'd love to hear about them, I don't always do the same for others.

That being said, why aren't dreams a selling point?  Why can't they be used as proof that things in the real world should happen?  As I see it, dreams are small side stories in the grand adventure of someone's life.  One of the reasons they can potentially happen is to remind you of things that you haven't forgotten.  When a friend of mine died almost three years ago, I couldn't wait to get to sleep so that I might see her face one more time, or be reminded of how her voice sounded.  In that case, a dream can console you by letting you know that in some other continuity, things were just a little bit different.  When you wake up from those dreams, it's bittersweet.  You know that you're back in a place where that person no longer exists, yet you know that somewhere, at least in your mind and memory, that person is okay.  It's comforting to be reminded every once in a while.

This begs the question "Why then, do we not go visit the people in our dreams who still exist in this world?"  And to that I have no idea.  I think dreams should be the perfect things to bring people together, and I encourage acting on them.  Now, I don't imagine a dream could take me to Canada or England to allow me to meet with people I've dreamt about, but it's certainly a reason to talk to pursue talking to them again, and perhaps bring a meeting into consideration again.  In some universe, things are different, why not this one?  I think that it's because I'm simply too afraid or lazy to confront someone that those subtle little dreams are so depressing.  In that other dimension, the meeting was arranged for me.  In this one, such a thing would take more bravery and effort.

Perhaps someday I will make more concerted efforts to blend all of the dimensions I visit.  While things may look vastly different from their counterparts in this dimension...and believe me, plenty of things do not look anything like their real life versions yet still scream someone's name (perhaps this is the form of their soul or essence?), the people are something that remain a constant.  I cannot transform buildings from their real world selves to the ones I see in my dreams, but I can try and put the people in front of me.  I think every now and then, dreams are created by the fires of adventure I like so much.  Yeah, maybe some of them are challenges "go find this person!" or "today try overcoming this fear!".  Okay, so the latter one is less likely to be an adventure I take, but my point gets across, I think. 

Dreams are stories we both make and are told at the same time.  They are stories that we are given even less control over than in the story of our real life.  Though not "real" per se, they are interesting, often challenging our beliefs and the laws of our existence, and thus they can have value.  Besides, they're just fun.  They're a nice chance to tell stories you normally wouldn't get to, and they certainly give us something or someone to think about.  All that being said, I'm headed off into that different world now, since I'm writing this fairly late at night.  I wonder if I'll be given any challenges tonight, and what kind of world I may be sent to...sleeping should not be this exciting.

Tengen Toppa Link: The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword

It's been a good five years since Link's last major console outing, and being that Twilight Princess was a Wii port, a true Zelda adventure for the Wii was conspicuously absent from Nintendo's roster.  Of course, since Skyward Sword was "announced" in 2009, it's not like that absence wasn't payed back in full.  Presented in its true form at E3 2010, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword pulled a Wind Waker and boasted a stylized visual look.  Given that Wind Waker had, after seven years, been vindicated by history, you'd think that Nintendo's choice to utilize a cel-shaded style would be accepted right off the bat.  Oddly enough, some fans were still split.

I felt a little bit like it was a cop out, trying Adult Link in the cel-shaded style, but looking back, it was really a brilliant idea.  Playing Twilight Princess, you notice a whole lot of imperfections in the realistic style...a lot of it coming from the fact that the world is huge, and thus covered by miles and miles of the same texture.  It didn't look back, but on occasion, it did look muddy or dirty.  What really gave Nintendo away about their partiality to the stylized looks of Wind Waker and its kin was the fact that, despite being realistic, the characters in Twilight Princess still looked very odd, with exaggerated features and expressions. 

So what did I think of the game itself?  Well, I don't know about it being the best game of the generation or anything like that, but it's still, undeniably and incontrovertably, one hell of an adventure.  It certainly mixes up a good few things from previous Zelda adventures in a style reminiscent of Wind Waker.  If you ask me, Skyward Sword is kind of getting the recognition that Wind Waker never could.  That's not a bad thing, since it certainly deserves it.

Aside from the unique visual style, the main attraction of Skyward Sword is the gameplay, which employs the Wii Motion Plus to improve the sword based combat.  The effectiveness of this approach is deceptive.  Once you face your first Boko Babas and Bokoblins, you realize that this approach is ALL about the six or so ways you can swing your sword.  You have to watch your enemy to see if they're holding their weapon to the right or left, horizontal or vertical.  It seems very very simple, and it kind of is except it's something players are not used to dealing with.  While the controls are indeed imperfect and some of my shots were most definitely read incorrectly as I input them, there are were a good few times I had to catch onto things too.

Oh sure, but how you get him to DO that first?

The battle system in Skyward Sword feels a lot like playing Portal.  The only reason you really suck at Portal is because you tend to forget what you can do, or as the game puts it "you're not thinking with portals."  Skyward Sword is much the same way.  You're fighting an enemy, they're winning, and it's only because you're not thinking about everything you can do.  This becomes evident the first time you encounter a Skulltula.  Anyone who's played Skyward Sword knows precisely what I'm talking about.  This game truly makes you think like a swordsman, or better yet a warrior, not only forcing you but allowing you to deal opponents as you see fit.  One of my favorite parts about this game is how I have my own little ways of defeating enemies.  Teknoblins come to mind.  Since their specialty is using an electricity-infused sword, I either take them out with a sword beam from afar, or better yet, place a bomb near their inanimate remains, only awakening them when it's just about to explode.  Neither of those things are particularly necessary, as I could just pay attention to where he's holding the sword.

One of the other major changes in the Stamina Meter, borrowed from Shadow of the Colossus.  Link can now run and perform more acrobatic feats for a limited time before the meter runs out and he must huff and puff to get his breath back.  This was something I wasn't unfamiliar with, since the same thing was put to brilliant use in Shadow of the Colossus.  The problem I had with it, however, was that it was not implimented quite as brilliantly.  In SotC, the Stamina Meter grows over the course of the adventure, while Link's stays the same.  It is, quite simply, a missed opportunity to show Link's growth, which happnens to be a major theme of the story.

Speaking of which, let's talk about that.  The story is, much like the game itself, somewhere between Wind Waker and Twilight Princess in tone, and it does work very well.  While I couldn't help trying to liken everything back to Back to the Future, the story fares fine on its own, giving us a typical Zelda story with a few nice perks.  The characters tend to be very good at falling on the side of likeable rather than annoying, as was in the case in the past.  Gone are the whiny brats of Ordon Village, and here are the residents of Skyloft, more specifically the Knights-in-Training.  While some of the charcters were a little obtrusive (seriously, Faron, again with the proving?), things are generally strong here.

There's one character here that stands out for me, and I can't talk about him without spoilers, but we'll get to that.  Ghirahim is a perfectly delightful villain.  He clearly acts an apology for Zant, who really really wanted to be THIS villain, but couldn't pull it off in Ganondorf's shadow.  No, Ghirahim is truly an enigma, getting into Link's personal space, and by extension, the players.  While he doesn't quite get to follow up on his promises to Link (and boy what promises they are!), he does do an excellent job of making the player feel uncomfortable against him, especially when he opens the first boss fight in the game by yanking your sword out of your hands if you're not quick enough.  Fighting him was always a blast, and his personality blew every other Zelda villain out of the water.  At every turn, he's taunting Link to come and stop him, all the while never quite revealing what you're stopping him from...reviving some master sure, but how?

Okay, so the elf with the skin tight bodysuit and wacky tongue just grabbed my sword- oh shit!

Also an accelling character is Groose, the Biff Tannen style bully that serves as Link's opening rival.  If you played Wind Waker, of course, you know that Groose is eventually going to come around and find a way to go after Zelda.  In that way, I don't consider it a spoiler that he eventually wisens up.  Though I think he ends up going a little TOO far in one direction, his transformation is fun to watch, and he provides a great deal of the games heartwarming comedy.  Definitely a solid character in my book.

It's no secret that this is the first game chronologically in the franchise, and that basically everything that happens in it is meant to link to future events.  In some places it's done very well, and in others it just kind of seems like nothing special.  For example, the story itself opens like another Zelda game: some calamity happened several thousands of years ago, the goddesses ended it, and inevitably, it's going to come up later in the storyline.  Granted, the games makes a few concerted efforts to support the decision to have an ancient foe, there's still a depressing amount of history missing, and thus this still doesn't feel like the beginning of thousands of years of legends.  Maybe I'm jumping the gun and another playthrough is needed for me to get all the subtle connections, but for now I'm standing by the fact that Link should have been facing a developing evil that no one had fought before.

SPOILERS AHEAD as I talk about the further plot.

One thing that bugged me about this plot was the sheer amount of "proving" Link had to do.  The only other game where Link had the arduous task of proving his worth to the Gods was in the Wind Waker, and that infamously took the form of a tedious quest to find eight Triforce shards.  While Skyward Sword does better on the gameplay end up things, the tedium remained for me in the plot.  Three prayer dungeons, three flame dungeons, three Silent Realm trials, and three smaller quests later, and Link STILL has not proven himself worthy of the power to beat his destructive enemy, even with the endorsement of a Goddess.  When I realized I had to go through a FOURTH Silent Realm and an entire dungeon (brilliant and tough yes, but...) to get the Triforce, I was pissed.  This is not to mention I'm still getting scolded by "full-fledged" knights every time I accidentally walk off the edge of Skyloft...which has no railings around the places you're not supposed to dive off of.  And Link?  He does all of this with a goddamn smile on his face.  You aren't just a LITTLE pissed that you've only not helped your friends because the Gods still don't find you worthy, as opposed to a giant mouth with about six hundred teeth? 

Now I know Zelda games aren't the most plot heavy games out there, but this one was a little overzealous with its motivations.  Sure, Zelda herself is someone you want to save more than ever, but if Nintendo really wanted to go the extra mile for characterization, he might have shown a little more disgust when Fi told him it would be longer until Zelda could re-awaken (WHY did she put herself to sleep anyway?), or have him grip his sword when Faron told him he'd have to do yet ANOTHER fetch quest for her.  It's kind of sad when the character that makes the most sense is the villain.  Ghirahim is the only one who reacts to things properly.  He throws a tantrum every time Link manages to get within ten feet of him, culminating in one of the most awesome and climactic fights in the game, wherein he coats his whole body in black steel and goads you into knocking his ass down a couple stories onto platforms below.

This brings me to the ending.  Ghirahim still completely steals the show for me.  He IS the villain of this story.  Everything from the point where he zips in and calls Link out on giving him the means to undo everything Link has worked for, taking advantage of the heroes' genre blindess (not the player's mind you, who can see him coming form a mile away) to the point where Demise shows his ugly, awesome, flaming head are made of pure, concentrated awesome.  Ghirahim's final boss fight was both epic and satisfyingly difficult, and the thought of his heavy body slamming into a platform below knocks the wind out of me still, kind of like imagining one spin attack mowing down about 20 Bokoblins in that God of War sequence just prior.  Demise was everything I wanted from an ultimate enemy: he was ten feet tall, had a really awesome design, and his sword was a Satan version of yours made out of the game's main villain.

His battle, however, was a little underwhelming.  I think it will be much better when I do it again, but the first time through I wondered how in the hell he gave a goddess so much trouble.  His first phase was fairly simple, although he does hit like a truck, and I wouldn't have lived if I hadn't been Crazy Prepared.  His second phase, while epic, irked me due to the use of a simple but devastating element from earlier in the game.  Sure, it was tough, and the music was epic, but I was really expecting him to bust out the stops after that, assaulting me with half his body being in dragon mode or something.  I'd heard he was hard as hell, so I expected a noob like me to die several times, but instead I made it through, and once I found out his gimmick, he could barely touch me.

We're gonna END THE SPOILERS there.

Suffice to say that most of my qualms with the ending and the plot will be subdued once I'm not so busy waggling my Wiimote all over the place figuring out what to do.  I look forward to playing the game through again for this reason. 

Moving on, the only thing really left to talk about is the music, well, that and scope/presentation, but we'll hit music first.  We don't really need to talk about music.  It's excellent as always.  While some bits could use a bit more melodyor heroicism a la Twilight Princess, the soundtrack is a perfect example of why all Zelda music should be handled by an orchestra or damn near close.  Voices are absent again, but Nintendo fans won't miss them.  In all honesty I'm kind of glad there aren't full voices, since a) Link's screams of pain in this game are TERRIFYING, and b) I could not stand Ghirahim's voice actor.

That brings us to the presentation of the game as a whole.  It's not like other Zelda games, and I have mixed feelings on that.  On one hand, you're never just wandering in an area waiting to get to the next dungeon, but on the other, all of the environments you visit seem hostile and sad, particularly the desert.  Each of the three main surface areas is just different and interesting enough to not be something to complain about, but I still wish that there were still a few traditional villages or something within them.  Skyloft was the biggest town in the game, and it was unlocked right off the bat.  The shock of seeing something as grand and full of secrets as Hyrule Castle Town or Windfall Island was lost, and that's kind of sad.  Still, I can't complain, since the sky was a very cool overworld.  Just take a minute out and think about how cool it is to casually be flying through the air from place to place.  It was the same deal as the Wind Waker, only streamlined and perfected.

As I've said, Skyward Sword is an excellent game that deserves much of the praise it garners.  While the plot is weak in some points, and a few series mainstays are now missing, making this Zelda lack some of the feelings that made the others great, it offers plenty more on its own to make up for it.  When talking about Skyward Sword, the description that comes to mind first for me is simply "well-crafted."  In many ways, there are things in this game that could not have been done better, and so in those same ways it reaches perfection. 

Is this the best Zelda game there is?  Well, I can't answer that, since I don't think such a thing exists.  I just think that of the Zelda games, this one was very well thought out and put together.  The developers took a few risks here and there, making sections that would appeal to all audiences.  They made a game that looked very good on the Wii, and gameplay that worked even better.  I will agree that Skyward Sword is a prime example of what developers should have been striving for all along when developing on the Wii.  In many ways, it's certainly a triumph, and addresses a good few of the things that were apparently wrong with Twilight Princess.  In that way...no...in it's very own way, Skyward Sword has indeed set itself apart from other games in the series in a fantastic manner.  Nintendo could have once again gone the way of Twilight Princess and given us a great Zelda game that simply expands the scope of its successors, but instead they took the best of all the games and compacted them into an ultimately smaller, but just as potent game. 

Yours is the sword that will pierce the heavens- Just who the hell do you think I am?

Ultimately, this iteration of Zelda manages to build on the franchise's experience while at the same time offering something very very different.  As far as gameplay and presentation goes, it takes the series in all the right directions.  It's easily one of the best games for the Wii, standing firm alongside the Mario Galaxy series as proof the Wii is home to some of the most creative, refreshing ideas that gaming has ever seen.  Link's sword has really pierced the heavens with this one...from BOTH directions, which is, of course, no negligible feat.