On the Subject of Serious Subjects

I struggle with writing about serious subjects. There is a part of me that wants to come out and declare certain things, to say things about current events, or about issues, or whatever. But it never feels that easy. I don't want to say something... wrong?

Like the Kindle issue. I wrote a post about some petty issues I have with the Kindle platform, not because they were big issues or problems or things that seriously turned me away from Kindle, but because they were minor things that I kept coming across and wanted/needed to vent about it. It's just a minor thing, the sort of gripe you might talk about with your friends, but I'm kind of isolated on the other side of the planet from my friends so I don't often get chances to gripe about things. Thus, rants online.

But there are bigger issues with Kindle and Amazon. I allude to them in that post, but don't go into detail. I have started writing a post about those bigger issues, and issues with digital media and ownership, etc. But it's such a serious topic and it's harder to write about for a few reasons. One reason is that if I'm writing about something silly or petty, if I get a few details wrong it doesn't really matter, it won't affect much. I still did a good deal of research into that earlier Kindle post, but in the end it didn't really matter.

But if I'm talking about serious things I want to make sure everything I say is accurate and correct, and so the amount of research needed goes up. I will want to make more points about the subject, and each point needs to be backed by facts, so that level of research can get exponentially bigger.

My Wizards review took effort to research because I didn't want to portray things incorrectly, and because I wanted to include a number of visual elements (screen captures from the film), but that was all easy stuff. I did read a few articles about the movie, but I was doing that anyway, it wasn't difficult. Sometimes fact checking serious subjects is a lot more difficult. And screen-caps took effort in the literal and strict sense of the word, but it wasn't difficult by any means.

The other reason it's harder to write about serious subjects is that it's just more emotional effort. I feel like this is probably self-explanatory, so I'm not really going to expound on it much. But suffice it to say that when life is already difficult, writing about difficult things (either things directly affecting me or not) is that much harder.

Am I a bad person if I don't make a post affirming LGBT+ people's rights, even while said rights are under threat? Am I a bad person if I don't publicly denounce Mega Corporation X? Or Public Figure Y? Is it worse to write about Kindle without addressing the greater issues with the platform (issues that have recently gotten worse) or Amazon as a whole? Is it wrong to avoid writing too much about serious subjects because life is already hard enough as it is, and focusing too much on those things only makes life more stressful?

I try to be a good person. I care about people. I especially care about those who are downtrodden, or those who are different, or "othered" by society. I have always been different, I have felt the pains of a system that wasn't made for people like me. And so I really feel the hurt other people feel when they face similar situations. Also, ya know, I have basic human empathy towards others.

So there is a part of me that wants to do something when I see serious things happening. A part of me wants to address these things. But I want to do it right, and do it to a standard I'm not sure I can consistently put out. So I shy away from the serious subjects. I don't know how I feel about that, though. Obviously I'm conflicted. 

I don't know if there's a solution or an answer. If someone came to me with this dilemma I can imagine my response/advice would be something along the lines of "I dunno dude, I guess you just gotta do the best you can and if you're not happy with what you wrote, then set it aside and return to it later." Which, I suppose is what I've done (literally, the first draft of this post was written in January, I believe). I may also offer a few words about having "no obligation to involve one's self in any particular issue," or something to that affect. Which, while true and valid, doesn't exactly clarify the conflict inside me. I know I don't owe the world any particular opinion or thought or whatever. But when I see rights being taken away, I want to do something, but I don't know what I can do. When I see wealth disparity rising, and people getting hurt, and my own self getting hurt by broken systems and broken people, I want to do something, but I'm so limited in what I can do. And so, speaking out is something I can do, but that doesn't make it simple or easy to do, and we could easily loop back to the start of this.

So I guess that, for the moment, this post will probably have to stand as my public statement about the world today, and with that being the case I want to say just a few more words. There are a hundred issues I could address, but I'll simplify it down to this:

Everyone should be allowed to exist and seek their own happiness, whatever that may be, without harming others. Be nice to others.

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood - The Novel - The Review

In 2019 Quentin Tarantino's film Once Upon A Time In Hollywood was released, and in 2021 Tarantino's novelization of his own film released, his debut novel.

It's good. It's basically just like the film, but more. More back story, more inner thoughts, more clarity on a few situations left vague in the film, more Manson cultists, more Sharon Tate, more Hollywood talk. A lot more Hollywood talk. Way more explaining the plot and backstory of Lancer (the show-within-the-movie/book that the main character of the film/book, Rick Dalton (Leo DiCaprio in the film), is guest-starring in the pilot episode of), as well as basically everyone connected to it, let alone everyone connected to just about everything.

This is... good. If you liked the movie, you will probably appreciate a lot of this.

There is just a lot of it. Like... a lot. By two thirds of the way through the book I was starting to get a little tired of the multiple digressions into the career of some 60s actor I didn't and still don't care much about. Sure, some of these digressions are interesting, some help set the scene, some help establish character. All of them are Tarantino geeking out about something he's passionate about. BUT at a certain point you have to stop and ask yourself "How much do I really want or need to know about James Stacy to understand what Lancer is about? And how much of this extra Lancer backstory is all that necessary for anything that this book is or is about?"

A lot of this extra info is factual, real life history (or at least really stories that have been told as if true) about real people who worked in Hollywood at the time of the book. There are obvious fictional elements, notably any time Rick Dalton is mentioned or connected to someone, as he is a fictional person, though the people he mentions and interacts with are mostly all real (exception to this is the other main character of the film and book, Cliff Booth, portrayed by Brad Pitt in the film), though some of the movies mentioned aren't (specifically the one starring Dalton), and obviously the real life Paul Wendkos couldn't have known and liked the fictional Rick Dalton.

On that note, the Lancer of Tarantino's imagination is a bit different from the actual Lancer show as it exists in our universe. I can say this definitively because I have actually seen the Lancer pilot episode, the one our fictional Rick Dalton guest stars in (and though his character is slightly revised in Tarantino's imagination, including the character's name, the character is mostly pretty true to what was on screen in our reality, down to looking like he could be played by someone who looked like DiCaprio). For a late 60s TV Western, I thought it was a decent watch. I mean, I'm not actually all that versed in that genre, but considering I was watching that genre from that time period with modern eyes, I thought it was fine. And, even if I think the changes Tarantino made for the film and book would have also been good (and more to the point, served the narrative he was telling), the fact that he goes over pages and pages and pages of backstory and explanation does kinda drag the pacing.

Tarantino also makes a couple weird choices. The book is structurally non-linear, allowing him to weave in and out of various digressions at will. This mostly works, but it makes for a fundamentally wild change to the ending of the book vs the movie.

Anyone who has seen the movie will definitely remember the fiery conclusion. I wouldn't want to ruin the film for any who might watch it and hasn't, so if that's you, then honestly go watch it first, then come back here.

If you're still here, let me just say the film does a great job at building tension, but then allowing the bulk of that tension to dissipate (intentionally so). As a consequence, the viewer begins to wonder if Tarantino has decided to, for once, make a film that doesn't feature explicit violence?

But at the same time, anyone who knows anything about Charles Manson's "Family," who feature prominently in the film/book, and the fate of Sharon Tate, knows that in our reality these plot-lines merge in a terribly violent, horrible tragedy. And so while a lot of the film's immediate tension is released with little fan-fare, there is an undercurrent of tension building up, particularly in any scene featuring Tate or the Manson family.

And thus, in the film Tarantino indulges in that hyper-real hyper-violent fantasy. The murderous hippies, who in reality invaded the home of Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski and brutally murdered the pregnant Tate, in the film and book they are nudged off that path and instead invade the home of Rick Dalton while his stuntman and friend Cliff Booth is there, who in addition to being a stuntman is a former war hero, former PoW, and man who has gotten away with murder. And the explosion of extreme violence is the release of the tension. The existence and relevance of a flamethrower is brought up before, almost in passing, and boy howdy does that Chekov's "gun" go off. It is a brutally violent yet extremely satisfying hyper-violent catharsis. With this alternate history we get to indulge in the fantasy of Tate surviving, of her never even really being in danger as the Manson cult never actually invades her home. It is revenge, almost. It is Tarantino wishing that something could have happened differently. Its him making up just the right people to fit into the world at that time who could have stopped the Tate murders.

In the book, though, that catharsis doesn't really happen. What is the final sequence in the film is given to us as essentially an aside, way earlier in the book, somewhere between the first quarter and first third. It is mentioned that the Manson-following hippies invaded Rick Dalton's home and that he and Cliff defended themselves, and thus we know the Tate murder was prevented. But we don't really see it happen on the page. We don't really get the explosive catharsis. More words are spent on the aftermath and how it re-vitalized Dalton's popularity, than on what was in the film the climax, the peak of the tension getting released.

I assumed, especially as Tarantino repeats himself about a couple other things (mostly Lancer stuff), that we'd get the scene in more detail at the end. But it doesn't happen.

And so while the film seems to be about A) A loving send-up to 1969 Hollywood and B) A fantasy revenge for a senseless and horrible tragedy, I'm left wondering what the book is actually about when that B is so subdued as to barely exist. 

Yes, it is still a good read, I would suggest it if you liked the movie and like to read. It's just that the focus feels a little off from what you might have previously expected. Tarantino loves old Hollywood, that much is clear. He may be one of the world's most well known filmmakers, but in his own mind he's more of a film fanatic than even that, and that has never been more clear than in this book. It's a love letter to that era of Hollywood as much as it is, in a sense, fan fiction of Tarantino's own works.

The ending is not a huge culmination of all the storylines, it isn't the high point climax that the film gets. It does, in a sense, fit the book's more slow burn, meandering style and tone better. It ends on a positive note for Rick Dalton, it has hope for him, and by extension for all of Hollywood. And in a sense that's more what the book is about. In the book, Sharon Tate's survival is, instead of a climax and catharsis, just one piece of the puzzle that is a vision of a still mostly pretty true to life but slightly more hopeful Hollywood. 

And yet the book is still clear that Hollywood was full of boozers, cheaters, egos, literal murderers (and in one of the main characters, even), and all sorts of scandals. So yes, stopping the Manson family before they would do their worst would have been a great thing, but does the rest of Hollywood deserve the redemption that is implied? 

Blog is an Ugly Word

I'm sorry to everyone out there who is happily a "blogger" or otherwise likes the word "blog" itself. But it stinks.

Back in the early days of blogging, in what one might now call the early childhood of the Internet the 1990s, they were called "weblogs" or a web-log. A log, written on the web. Much like a travelog or whatever. A very, very early Internet naming convention. Mail that is electronic? E-Mail! Brilliant. On writing this I realize that "Internet" is probably itself a compound word. "Inter" and "network", "network" itself also being a compound of "net" and "work". Though, those are a little more complicated in form and meaning than the stupidly simple "email" and "blog".

Email, as a word itself, is fine though. Mail is common and understood and has a neutral to pleasing sound alone, "E" is the most commonly used letter in English and also has a nice pleasing sound. "Web" and "Log" are not as universally neutral-to-pleasant separately, and not together either. I mean, "web" sounds fine on it's own. The "w" sound is smooth, and you've got that pleasant "e" sound, and a "b" sound is also a good sound.  Log is fine when you're describing or noting a log, like a fallen tree. Or a log-book, like you're a ship's captain keeping a log of the comings and goings onboard your vessel. It is a functional word, perhaps not beautiful, but functionally fine.

"Web" as a term meaning "The Internet" has somewhat fallen away. You just don't hear people talking about "The Web" quite as much anymore, even if they technically use it every day. It persists in the "WWW"  of our URLs, but almost no one ever thinks about "WWW" meaning "World Wide Web" anymore, or at least not often (unless they're noting that it takes less time and syllables to say "world wide web" than "double you double you double you," which is true). So the "web" etymology is if not a little outdated at least a bit old-sounding. Sure, we say "website" still. I never said the word is dead, just not as prevalent as it was in the radical 90s when we were "surfin' the web" and such. But of course, even if "web" was still just as popular a term generally, that's the part that gets cut out in the shortened "blog"!

"Log" has never really been super accurate for what most people use "blogs" for anyway. I suppose I can concede that in the early days more people were "logging" aspects of their lives, like a daily or weekly journal of sorts. But to me a log is much more... technical. Like I mentioned above, if you're a ship at sea you probably have a log-book, and you record your cargo and the crew aboard your vessel. A "weblog" is then what? A list of the things you have on your website? The people who view your website? Remember "guestbooks" on early websites?

Okay I know I'm getting way too weirdly literal about the word "log". I get the etymology of the word, as I mentioned travelogs before, which is of course a long-standing and still relatively popular literary genre, and probably even more popular now as "vlogs" on youtube. I'm not going to get into "vlog," please don't ask.

Anyway, "blog" has only stuck around just because it was mostly accurate and short and catchy enough to just catch on in those days. "Weblog" got shortened to "blog" (first via someone being cheeky and saying "We Blog," get it? Cue vicious eyeroll) and that was easy to digest. It's shorter than anything else I can come up with off the top of my head like "Internet journal" or any shortened versions of that, or whatever. So I understand why the term endured to modern times and why it has such mass adoption as to not be questioned. A blog is just a thing, that is just the term for it. Like a tree is a tree and a rock is a rock, a blog is a blog and it shall not be superseded.

I just don't like the word. It does not have a pleasant sound or feel to it. I wouldn't know what else to call what I'm doing here, so I shall unfortunately probably just continue to use the word. Maybe I'll just say "my website" or whatever (hey, there it is again, "web"). "I posted a new write-up on my website" or some such nonsense. That sounds a tad silly to me also, partially because of the avoidance of trying to avoid the word "blog" when I'm linking to a website called "blogspot" that I typed and edited it via "blogger" and we all know it's a "blog."

This is such a stupid and petty complaint I do not know if I will ever post this, but it did feel kinda good to write about it. Actually, shoot dang that's exactly why I am going to post it. If I can't be stupid and petty on my own blog where can I?

Almost every time I read a book, I feel the need to write my version of that book

Almost every time I read a book, I feel the need to write my version of that book.

Last year I read Neuromancer by William Gibson and throughout the whole book I kept thinking about how I should write a cyberpunk book with a hacker main character, and the trials and travails they'd have to face. When I first read a Haruki Murakami book (for the record it was Kafka on the Shore, and I wouldn't suggest starting there tbh) I wanted to write a story about a young man lost in the world who faced surreal and incomprehensible situations. When I read Brandon Sanderson I often want to write epic fantasy. Some of the fantasy worlds that I've spent the most amount of time world-building and plotting in have some direct inspirations from Brandon Sanderson.

To be clear, I don't intend to plagiarize anyone. I never want to tell the same story as someone else. I just couldn't stop thinking about writing a story about a hacker dude all the way through Neuromancer. The way my mind works, I suppose, I get inspired by these books and thus I want to write something along the same lines.

Some readers of this blog may know that relatively recently (wait it's been over two years, holy cow) I had a whole, whole bunch of stuff in a storage unit. Basically all my music and movies and media and computers, mementos from childhood, furniture, a large collection of vinyl records, and almost everything I owned was in this storage unit. And that storage facility burned to the ground, total loss on everything. Irreplaceable things. Pictures, videos, writings, notebooks. Out of print foreign movies. All destroyed.

I had a few, a handful of things that were overseas with me. About two suitcases worth of clothing and stuff that made the trip with me, and thus was obviously untouched by the ravaging fire that happened on the other side of the world.

One of those things I had brought with me was, out of all things in the world, the Sega Genesis Mini. I don't even have a particular love for the Genesis library. I absolutely do not like the 2D Sonic games (or most of the 3D ones for that matter). But somehow one of these was in my possession. And since I've been trying out some of these games, mostly to introduce my kids to retro-gaming and occupy them allowing me to occasionally get about two minutes of rest at a time, we've been going through and trying out some of these games. There's a game on it called Monster World IV. And I want to make it. I want to make my version of it. It's a 2D sidescrolling action platformer. Apparently it's a part of the Wonder Boy series, if you're familiar with that (I'm not lol). (Why is it called Monster World IV if it's a Wonder Boy game? Even wikipedia is confused.)

I want it to be... better, though. I like the female protagonist's design well enough. (Wait, Wonder Boy but female protag? Yeah, it's a side story. Oh is Monster World a side series? Yes, kind of, but it's the third MW release and not the fourth.) I want RPG mechanics. I want more dungeons. I want more gear. In essence I want to play Maple Story but have it not be bad.

This is kind of a problem though, isn't it? It's a part of my difficulty focusing on any one thing enough to actually get it finished. If I continually want to write X new thing or work on Y new project, I'll always be starting anew. The curse of the creative, I suppose.

This post is all over the place, I'm never posting this lol. 

Or that's what I thought when I wrote the first draft of this, when I was actually in the middle of reading Neuromancer (though I've updated the language to indicate that I have since finished it, obviously).

But in light of my continually renewed attempt to write here, this sort of short but pointless post may become more common.

January 2025 Update

Howdy! It's been about two months since I last wrote here, and I kinda wanted to reflect on that briefly, in part because I have mentioned previously that I wanted to write at least one post a month, if not more. I technically hit about twice a month for a short bit there, but obviously fell off.

That's a sort of a pattern I find in my life a lot. It would be easy to say "oh my interest in the blog thing just waned." But that's not exactly accurate. I do still want to write just as much as I did before. I still do have a desire to do almost all the things that I have fallen off from doing (and there are many). I think it's relatively rare, for me at least, to quit doing something because I just totally lost interest. Occasionally it will happen with media, like a book or game or movie I'm just not getting anything out of, but pretty much never with my actual pursuits.

What happens more often, and it holds true in this case as well, is that there is A) a roadblock or roadblocks, and B) some other project to draw my time or attention away. Those two things separately can really arrest forward progress on any sort of project. Together they're killer.

All of this is a sign, a symptom of what we call ADHD. It is far from the only ADHD trait that I exhibit. But I must clarify that I am undiagnosed for any sort of neurodivergence, so I’m somewhat wary of openly declaring something like “I have ADHD," or even "I think I have ADHD," (though I do think that). But also I’ve never been evaluated for ADHD either, hence the wariness at self-diagnosis. That is somewhat of a sidebar, but clearly I think it's worth mentioning in connection to this subject.

I want to preface this next section by saying that I am not complaining. I am not whining about these things. I record them here at least in part because the act of writing about them is a way for me to process them. Perhaps, if you find yourself here, reading this post, you might relate to some of these things. Maybe reading about them will help you process them as well, though I claim no authority on definitive answers. So, with that in mind, here are some roadblocks:

1) No one cares. I returned to writing a blog not for the edification of anyone else. I am not necessarily writing to an audience. I know that I am owed no one's attention. But to be quite honest seeing that a post has zero views kinda hurts. That's a me problem, I know. I knew going in that I should assume no one actually cares what I have to say or write.

At the same time, though, I am posting these publicly at least in part because a portion of me does want people to see and read them. If I didn't, I would write them solely in an actual paper journal instead of posting online, which is a practice I intermittently do. Another part of posting these online is so that I actually write a full piece, a full "essay" or "article", if you will, instead of the aimless ramblings of a journal (or of the dozens of draft posts I have started but never finished). So, I know I should not focus on the external element and focus instead on the internal reasons for writing. If an audience exists, it will come in time. I am not owed it, I must earn it. Doesn't mean a big Zero doesn't sting a little, but that's life, isn't it? That's art. It needs to be for me first.

2) No one cares part two. Someone who in the past has encouraged me to write, someone who said they'd read anything I put out, when I sent them the link to my Wizards review replied "If I don't care about Bakshi or his wizards, why should I care to read about them?"

Oof.

If this person changed their mind and no longer desires to read the things I write, that is their prerogative, of course. I know they tend to be busy, I believe they mentioned they only have limited time to read these days in the same message. But I didn’t make any demands, I just shared a link, and expected them to get around to it on their own schedule, or never. That’s often how I operate as well, getting around to things when I can. I can’t always drop everything to check out something someone sends me, but I also don’t just immediately reject the suggestion.

Maybe this person knows Bakshi by his other works and legitimately doesn't care to know another single thing about the man or his films. Fine, I suppose. Bakshi isn't for everyone.

But it was still kinda discouraging.

Isn't the whole point of a review to tell you about a thing, so you can decide if you care or not? If you come across a review of a thing you don't have an interest in, reading the review is a way to decide if it's worth changing that or not.

I know some people won't care one way or another. I don't read every review about everything ever either. It was just that combination of the theoretical support with the rejection that kind of flabbergasted me.

And yeah, again, one person's opinion, or the world's apathy, shouldn't dissuade one from doing something (assuming of course that the thing they're doing isn't causing harm and is an okay thing to do). It was just, ya know... oof.

3) Interesting/Worthy Subject. This is related to something I said above, specifically the thing about having a bunch of orphaned drafts. I've started a good deal of write-ups only to wind up unable to find the right way to convey the thoughts and feelings I have on the subject or with less to say than I thought.

This is just a part of the creative process, so it's not a huge problem. It's just a bit of a hurdle or roadblock to getting something out. 

 

I have four published since my return to da blog, and (counting this) seven "drafts". Some are longer than others, none is really close to publish-ready. They would all take a good amount of effort (relatively speaking) to get publish-ready. Looking at this situation positively, I have seven ideas that at one point I thought good enough to start, so that's seven good places to start (well, six, since this one is definitely getting finished and published).

Anyway, this is actually very related to the next potential roadblock:

4) The inner critic. A part of me wants to call it imposter syndrome, as in: let's assume I am actually a decent writer, or at least not totally garbage, but my imposter syndrome tells me I’m awful. But what if it isn’t imposter syndrome? What if I really do suck at writing?

Well, that’s what practice is for, and this whole blog thing was at least in part meant to be practice. 

 

On days I’m not horribly depressed I like to think I’m at least okay at writing. But sometimes putting words down is hard, and nothing seems to be right or good or I just can’t express it, as stated above. So maybe I suck. Maybe I don’t. But those times when I sit and I just can’t get anything coherent out make it hard to keep going, or to try again the next day.

 

This is kind of related to the first two points also, in that if no one is reading it, does it matter? Maybe I post garbage and no one reads it, but I find satisfaction in having written and hitting that button on the top of my screen that says "Publish".

5) Time allocation aka distractions. This is different from my “some other project to draw my time or attention away” above. When I have another project that I’m working on I may legitimately not have time to write posts or short fiction or whatever. But what I mean here is that when I do have time to write, I’m not actively working on something else productive, but I instead do something else that isn’t productive or whatever.

I’m not saying that taking time to enjoy yourself is bad, not at all. I value my distractions, they keep me sane and semi-functional. Everyone needs something to help them relax, to unwind.

But there are times when I’m not unwinding, but I end up just sitting and playing Deep Rock Galactic Survivor or Fallout 4 or whatever else, because I just feel like doing it instead of doing something productive. Time that I don’t need to be cooking, cleaning, taking care of my children, working on something, or anything else. Time that I could be using to write, or work any other various projects, but I just… don’t. Why? Like I said, it’s easier to start a video game than it is to put effort into something. It feels good faster.

 

I do enjoy writing, but it takes much more of a different type of effort. The satisfaction is different. Perhaps more real in a sense, but less immediate. Neither is necessarily worse or better than the other, at least in the right time and place. But that's what I'm saying, sometimes I do indeed go for the easier instead of putting effort into things.

 

The most obvious solution is before starting up a video game to just stop and ask myself "Do I really need this right now? Is there something better I could be doing?" Sometimes the answer really is "Yeah I do need this right now" and then so be it, I shall enjoy it. But not always.

And I think that's it. Those may not be every roadblock to posting, but they are the biggest (or at least most obvious) ones.

So instead of just succumbing to them, I will aim to post here at least once a month. Maybe I end up posting shorter things. Not every post needs to be long or detailed, it just has to be something. Often when I write something like this, I want to be exhaustive. But small ideas are okay too. We'll see!

Thanks for reading!