John Hattaway » opinion

Life and Death

smokingpen — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 20:29:22 +0000

As I’ve state before, I have this mental list of people that when I hear a news story about them I have to ask myself, “What, he (or she) is not dead?” I can give a quick list of a few people – though I won’t – that fall into that list. However, this week, this time, it’s not really about people who I think should’ve already died, but more the people who passed on in the public eye.

The other day I pointed out that I think the world is a better place without Michael Jackson in it. I also know people who will (and probably do, given a reading of my blog) disagree with me about that. To me, I am not concerned with the musical talent or entertainment talent Mr. Jackson possessed; but rather, I am concerned about the safety risk he was and is to young boys. Just because his money and influence have kept out of jail and away from a conviction does not mean he is innocent. Sadly, I think the victims who were silenced should begin to speak out now because of him.

Farrah Fawcett also died this week. I have no opinion in any direction as to her demise. Given that she was suffering from a rather embarrasing form of cancer (who wants anal cancer? I mean, come on, if you’re going to have cancer might as well pick one of the cool ones . . . not that any form of cancer is actually cool). The reality of having cancer is, more often than not – and regardless of the advances in medicine – that the person is going to die. Heck, the reality of life is that we are all going to die, for some death comes earlier than for others.

This morning the world was informed of Billy Mays’s death. He is the pitch man for Oxy Clean and other products. Like many people, I can’t really imagine turning on the television and not seeing his face, sooner or later, on a commercial while I am actually enjoying a television show. Sure, I am as wont as not to change the channel, quickly, when he opens his mouth and begins talking, but still, his is a name and a face I recognize. I am pretty certain that Michael Jackson and Billy Mays, both of whom were about the same age, didn’t start last week thinking that by the end of the week they would (individually) be dead. Neither do I believe that anyone thought that a rash of celebrity deaths would hit the news stands this week.

The truth of the matter is that even though I have this list in my head of people I think should be dead and aren’t, I guess as a member of the human race I also have the capacity to be surprised by the passing on of someone who should still be alive and for whatever reason isn’t anymore. I am probably just as shocked as everyone else at the people who died this week. I think one difference, at least for me, is that I am not looking at this as some cosmic scheme or reason to reconsider what I am doing in my life.

Instead, I move forward with the expectation that the majority of people in the world will remain alive, that those who died are quickly replaced by those who are born, and that when a death occurs that directly affects me I will properly and appropriately mourn the life of someone I cared about and who I will not be able to interact with again.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly

thank goodness

smokingpen — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:00:52 +0000

Michael Jackson, professed king of pop, died yesterday. I have one thing to say, “Thank goodness.”

I realize that a lot of people will consider me inconsiderate and rude. Especially since Jackson’s family is (now) mourning his death. To that I have this to say:

Michael Jackson was embroiled in a series of scandals and law suits that forever ruined his image and destroyed any legacy he had. Any greatness he achieved as a young man and performer are always going to be undershadowed by the fact that he was a pedophile, he did sleep with young men, he was a predator, and he had to leave the continental United States for a period of years to avoid the press and stories that accompany someone who is guilty and whose fame has kept them out of jail. Young men, children, are safer as a result of his demise. So, thank goodness.

I am sure millions of people will mourn his death as they mourn the deaths of Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, and Princess Diana. That is their right. As for me, Mr. Jackson goes down in history and in my books as someone who needed to be put in jail or taken off the streets and whose demise is deserved and only protects those he would’ve injured.

Thank goodness.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly

The Problem with Vampires

smokingpen — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 07:19:51 +0000

I am watching Twilight. I didn’t like the book and made it to the point where Erin told me it would get good (and then some) and discovered that it was about on par with reading road signs as literature and I have to tell you road signs are not literature and in some world where they are you find Twilight.

Twilight (for those that don’t know) follows Bella on her trek to becoming a vampire. You don’t know this in the first book. From what I hear, she messes with werewolves in the second book and has this odd love triangle going on between a vampire and a werewolf until other stuff happens. And yes, I have an idea of what that “other stuff” is and don’t want to dwell on it.

Moving forward…

Some years ago I discovered the author L.J. Smith. As I recall, the first book of hers I read was about a teenage witch coven and I really enjoyed it. The books were sold in the Y/A section of the bookstore (I was working in at the time… and in bookstores I visit on occasion). Pretty quickly, I’d either purchased or borrowed all of Smith’s books and enjoyed them and then time passed, she stopped publishing, and in the end I pretty much lost track of her.

At the same time, I also saw a series of movies over a series of years that rotated around vampires. The first in the series was, Interview with the Vampire based off of the book with the same title by Anne Rice. At its core, the audience is treated to a vampire telling the world about his experiences about being a vampire. The bulk of the movie is set in the past, before cars, and encompasses the early experiences of being a vampire with the outcome that you get a montage and voice-over dialogue that moves the story forward in time to the present. In the end, I didn’t find this movie or (almost) any other movie about vampires to be at all interesting. In fact, this coupled with some other experiences led me to shy away from almost everything to do with the subject.

Then I read Christopher Moore’s book, Bloodsucking Fiends. This book followed, rather strictly, the humorous tale of a young girl waking up a vampire and how she copes with the changes that have taken place in her life. As a result, the audience is entertained by the a girl learning to be undead and being ten pounds heavier (forever) than she wants to be.

Ah, to be a girl who worries about ten extra pounds….

Actually, I have no idea what that is like and as as a result will move forward.

Then I was introduced to the writing of Kim Harrison. Her books are all told first person from Rachel Morgan’s POV and encompass all sorts of fantasy creatures that include vampires. Harrison has written at least one short story from her principle vampire character’s POV. I didn’t enjouy it. But I do enjoy Rachel Morgan’s POV and that she is a witch. I like the idea of witchcraft.

Imagine the naive notion of wish fulfillment… that is, at it’s core, what stories about magic are about. You, the individual, are given the opportunity change the world around you through some medium that, depending on what book or story or fantasy or horror element you are reading, ends up being about tapping into a mystic energy. Different people call it different things, but the outcome is still the same, changing something around you.

And yet, this post isn’t about magic or witches, it is about vampires.

The problem with writers who write about vampires is that they write from the perspective of someone who has not lived very long and yet, have lived hundreds of years. Take Twilight as an example. Edward Cullen is a vampire. As I remember, he’s been alive for somewhere around 100 years. And yet, when watching the movie or reading the book, the attitude of the character is someone who has lived for a period of less than twenty years rather than more than 80 years. As a result, there is a pretty serious disconnect between what one expects from the character(s) as a vampire and what one gets. The problem is that Edward should be more mature and by extension should have to force himself to act younger than he is… but switching into maturity and wisdom that doesn’t belong to someone of his apparent age. And yet, instead of maturity the outcome is immaturity.

It is through immaturity that the audience then finds the disconnect. There are more things about the story that cause disconnects… though I am not all that interested in outlining what Stephanie Meyer has done wrong or why I agree with Steven King about how she is actually a very bad writer. What she did right was to tap into the primal need for fear in love and as a result this spread like wildfire among women and girls and we have a modern day Jane Austen… who, also, wasn’t that great of a writer and tapped into some rather basic needs of her principle audience.

The outcome, for me, is that, “No,” I don’t enjoy the movie. I did need to watch it alone so that people wouldn’t tell me what I though about it before I gave it it’s fair shake. Along with that, I felt it was… mean spirited (???) to attack Kristen Stewart for what she says in interviews without first getting a glimpse of her acting ability (poor, actually). Kristin Stewart likes to say a lot of things. They are not thought out. And they end up being rather mean spirited and make her sound stupid. On top of which, the dialogue she is supposed to say doesn’t work coming out of her mouth. Instead of sounding more intelligent, she sounds like she is trying to sound more intelligent.

Vampires, however, become disinteresting because they are one dimensional and, in almost all cases where the author attempts to make them three dimensional, they also fail. In short, the idea that someone could, potentially, live for periods of hundreds and thousands of years would indicate that the potential for human growth and development should extend to the vampire growing as well. Instead, the vampire often becomes stagnant in whatever era they were most comfortable and as a result, you get the idea of what the individual might have been like say, during the reign of the pharoah’s.

As a result, all of the experiences and learning opportunities and etc. that took place from that time to the modern are lost because that particular individual stopped (effectively) experiencing life from that point forward.

And this is one of the serious flaws with vampire stories. On the one hand, you get the desire to live indefiniately. On the other hand, that long life requires the individual to eat blood and deal with other aspects of the curses. The outcome is that authors have very little ability to place themselves in the shoes of the undead and as a result don’t write compelling enough stories. At least, not compelling enough for me.While all of that is true, another truism is that Twilight as a book and as a movie sucks.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly

A Week’s Worth of Graveyards

smokingpen — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 23:54:16 +0000

I spent the last week working the graveyard shift. I get to do that for the foreseeable future. This is not something I am interested in doing long term, or something that I would change given that I am not fond of “this place” as an employer. I think if I have to work for “this place” the graveyard shift is the one to work.

Essentially, my job has me putting health and beauty products onto shelves. What I noted, almost immediately, was that people have a tendency to just shove anything into any spot that is available. As a result, trying to figure out what should be on the shelf as compared to what needs to be on the shelf and what is on the shelf is rather difficult. The outcome is a lot of time re-arranging shelves and product to ensure that the impending inventory coming up happens (relatively) quickly and that when I have a cart full of product I can put it places.

With all of that said, my sleeping habits have shifted from night to sleeping during the daytime. Daylight sleep is not cool. I know from previous experience that it is difficult on the body. We set up the office with a blackout curtain that I augmented with a sheet (around the outside) to block most of the light. We also started running white noise while I am sleeping so as to block most of the ambient noise in the house. The outcome is that I can get eight pretty good hours of sleep in from when I go to bed to when I wake up.

All-in-all, though, I am glad to have a job in the current economy. The governmnent tells me that things will begin looking better by the end of summer. Except, the current chairmen of the Federal Reserve Bank says the recession may do a 180, but that we can continue to expect to see increasing unemployment rates and foreclosures and bankruptcies. Talk about exciting. Sure, 2009 is supposed to be a golden year and at the same time it won’t do me a whole lot of good.

What I have noted, going into bookstores and walking through the business section are books that are written to help people survive a layoff/recession and books that are there to tell you what you can do to have a recession proof job. What is a recession proof job anyway? When money goes away or your piece of the financial pie is smaller than you want it to be, this means that any job is potentially vulnerable. Sure, some companies are set up to withstand the financial buffettings of a down market, but keep the market down long enough and no one survives.

We don’t know how bad the Great Depression was or how large the unemployment numbers were. We do know that a lot of people suffered and there is a lot written about that suffering. Many of our great American writers are a product of that era. My grandparents lived through it (on both sides) and as a result the way they handled money and lived their lives was influenced by bank failures and a lack of work.

I am not suggesting that we are in a similar situation as the Great Depression. Rather, I am saying that we don’t know how long this will go on. I don’t know how long I will have to work for “this place.” We just don’t know and I think that’s the point

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly

Changes Needed

smokingpen — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 23:38:16 +0000

And, “No,” I am not talking about me or this site (though I am sure both need changes).

When I voted for President Obama, I expected he would do exactly what he has been doing, working the Democratic party line. In fact, I expected him to work the highly liberal line. Hilary Clinton would’ve done the same thing except she would’ve kept the United States at war longer (because she is a woman and because she has to prove she has the ability to make those hard decisions). The outcome is that I am neither surprised nor disappointed nor upset nor terrified nor anything else by what has been happening. Regardless of what the (now) former president Bush is saying about his time in office and the twelve hardest decisions he had to make while in office. Just because a decision is hard does not mean it is right (or wrong) or even appropriate.

What gets me about politics, today, is that we have two parties and one or the other claims they are the “party of change” (as opposed to a “candidate of change“). The problem with this statement isn’t that each party claims to be the bastion of change, but rather that we can expect any change based off of choosing one party or the other. The very nature of change implies that something has to be different. Since neither the Republicans or the Democrats have done anything (significantly) different in decades and the only change one can expect when voting for one party or the other is whether or not a single issue is going to be decided more liberally or conservatively. In fact, you can pretty accurately determine how any specific piece of legislation is going to be decided based on who is in the majority and who is president.

This is not change. In fact, we haven’t had change in this country in enough years that I think we are “drinking the sand” not because we are deceived, but because we no longer know the difference.

One of the problems that exist is entirely financial. Because I make less money this year than I did last year and am working at a job where I am severely underemployed, my wife and I (and by extension our child) have to spend less money. We have less money coming in and therefore have to make sure less money goes out. This is not just true of my family but also millions of other families. We get to spend less and yet the government, instead of spending less, feels it necessary to spend more. To wit, AIG has received hundreds of billions of dollars in bailout money. The big news this past week has been the hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses the company is paying out to its executives (some of whom drove the company into the ground). On top of which, it is the government that determined AIG was essential to the economy and that the country’s financial future depended on the continued existence of the company.

And yet, on top of that, the budget is still filled with pork and the president still signed it and we are still selling our children down the river because politicians refuse to stop spending money.

One of the things that has made our life a bit harder was that the state of Massachusetts (as in all other states) reduced operating budgets for this year. Before the collapse of the housing market, and the financial market, I was shortlisted on a job that I thought I wanted. After, the budget for the university I was applying to was reduced and all new hire opportunities were eliminated. Unless a job was essential to the function of the university, it wasn’t going to be filled. The outcome is that even states have had to reduce operating expenses for lack of funds.

The United States government has increased, drastically, its spending. Now, in order for the government to increase spending it has to get money from somewhere. In order to get money it has to sell bonds. In order to sell bonds with enough money in it to cover expenses it has to sell them to other countries since individuals don’t have money in the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars to trillions of dollars. In short, entire government economies are based on the United States spending money on credit.

What all of this leads to is that we need real change in our country. We need politicians that aren’t aligned with either the Republicans or the Democrats. We need a new way of passing legislation and of stopping the excessive spending. We need new ideas and a new direction.

At present, regardless of who we vote for or what they promise, CHANGE is not a part of their agenda.

CHANGE is merely a buzzword to encourage independents to vote for them.

This country needs real CHANGE and currently, we are not seeing it.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly

John versus . . .

smokingpen — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 02:22:53 +0000

Yesterday was, at best, a pretty stressful day for me. I ended up driving with my brother-in-law to Upper State New York to pick up a bunch of his stuff. We were betting it wasn’t going to be there, but at some point between when it was decided we could/should go and actually heading out, b-i-l got a call from the guy he was supposed to be living with and found out that his stuff was where he left it.

The drive started at something like 6:00 a.m., which meant I had to be awake around 5 a.m. The 5 a.m. wake-up call is not uncommon as Erin and I have Camper and he is pretty regular in his sleeping/waking cycles. He is also pretty regular in wanting to eat every three hours, though the last couple of nights he’s gone for longer periods in between eating. This morning, when I got up with him at 2-ish a.m. he cuddled into me and then fell back to sleep. I went back to bed and a few hours later he was awake and Erin was feeding him. Then I woke up, per our usual cycle, and took him downstairs, fed him, and watched a couple of the shows we recorded over the past few nights – which is always cool. I like TV.

However, Tuesday morning had me and b-i-l leaving the house a little after 6 a.m. and driving the five hours (one way) to get his stuff. Fortunately, the drive was pretty uninteresting and there wasn’t much traffic. I liked it. We made a couple of stops, mostly for gas. When we got there we went upstairs (the apartment was on the second floor of an old house) and quickly gathered b-i-l’s things, wrapped the mattress set in a large blue tarp, and then strapped everything down in the back of the truck and headed back to Massachusetts.

Approximately 10 and a half (or eleven) hours later we pulled back into the driveway and unloaded everything on this end of the drive – right where we started.

What I realize is that I don’t really enjoy nor handle the 10 hour days of driving. The kick in the pants is that between driving semis and visiting my parents, long round trip drives used to be a part of my life. Now, though, I don’t like it a whole lot.

When we finally got home and everything was set, Camper was in bed, I’d fallen asleep on the sofa. Erin suggested I go to bed, or get ready for bed, and before I knew it I was asleep and waking up to take care of Camper and then asleep again until almost 8 a.m. Point being, I don’t think long drives with preceding nights of little sleep are really my thing anymore. Yes, I lament the loss of real road trip buddies and wish I could do that; while at the same time wondering, “Why would I want to?”

Regardless, it was an enjoyable trip and I think everything went just the way it was supposed to. Even though b-i-l’s idea of a road trip (as he described it briefly) isn’t even remotely like my idea of a roadtrip. Nuff said.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly

Civil Rights

smokingpen — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 02:12:01 +0000

We currently live in a time of unprecedented change. This is history that is happening all around us. Every day something new changes that even twenty or thirty years ago seemed impossible. We have an African-American as president and we have the gay rights groups arguing in favor of same-sex marriage. Along with that, racial and social tolerance is better than it was even ten years ago. And when you turn on the television, the WASP is less of a force to be reckoned with than it ever has been before.

I would say, for appearance sake, we are doing a lot better. And I would say that I am pretty disgusted with the state of California. Before I do a whole lot to explain why, let me share something:

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

That is the preamble and second paragraphs to the Declaration of Independence. This is the basis under which the United States came to be through the War for Independence or Revolutionary War. It is as a result of these words that some of our base understanding for individual rights – life, liberty, pursuit of happiness – come into play. And as a result, when we speak of Civil Rights the combination of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill or Rights is what we are speaking of.

The problem, though, is less that we are guaranteed certain rights, but more that some people want to insist that all assumed rights by anyone who wants to put forth the effort deserve to be considered as an inaliable or civil right. And yet, they are not.

Erin has taken to pointing out that if she would let me, we would probably watch The American President every night. That is not entirely true, I do enjoy the movie. However, the protagonist of the movie, Andrew Shepherd, insists that we cannot be a truly free nation until someone is willing to defend the rights – with their lives – of someone doing or saying something they completely abhor while expecting that someone will do the same. In essence, we protect different forms of speech simply because we want all speech to be free. This is why people are able to swear in public and not be fined or arrested.

What we forget in our Hollywood movies and opinions is not that people have rights, but that not all rights are guaranteed or even necessary for any people. In short, and one of the prominent reasons I will not willingly move to California, is the same-sex marriage debate in California. I am opposed to it. Which makes it interesting (to me) that I live in a state where same-sex marriage is legal . . . for now. We will end up moving, but not because of that.

Just because a person or even a group of people declare something to be a right, civil or inaliable or otherwise, does not make it so. The ethical concerns of ensuring that people have access to rights is important. However, obfuscating the arguments of rights over responsibility of courts or governments is an argument that quickly leads to a slippery slope. In the case of California, the foundation of California’s law was changed so that marriage is defined as only between a man and a woman. Therefore, a man and a man or a woman and a woman are not legally recognized as married. The argument comes down to a simple word: marriage.

The outcome from that change to the basis of the law, though, is not gracious defeat but rather a racous outpouring of claims that voters have been disenfranchised and made lesser citizens. At no point have I heard of other rights being taken away. They can still speak and bare arms and publish circulars and do all of those other pesky things that are guaranteed under the basis for Federal Law. And I support that. What gets me is that the proponents for same-sex marriage are declaring that the passing of this constitutional ammendment, itself, is inherently wrong and illegal and as a result should be overturned.

Essentially, what is being allowed to take place is a subversion of the law through the courts. We are no longer dealing with groups that are using the courts to pass legislation (e.g. same-sex marriage… this was never passed through a legislature or citizens initative); but taking action within those same courts to overturn the basis from which they derive their power.

Now, people have used the Declaration of Independce for all sorts of reasons. They use it to defend Civil Rights. They use it to defend terrorist actions in assumed tyrany. They even use it to tell the government that it is no longer governing with the consent of the governed. I get all of that. However, for the first time in my life, for the first time in every person who is living today’s lives, we are actually seeing the basis of governing authority being tossed out and ignored. Sure, it’s on a state level. But it doesn’t stop with the states and eventually, if the California Supreme Court finds in favor of same-sex marriage, it will be taken to the United States Supreme Court as well as into every other state that has passed an ammendment in support of defining marriage.

For the first time in my life I am beginning to wonder if the Declaration of Independence isn’t suddenly becoming more pertinent not only to our nation and our government, but also to how we will ultimately be governed in the future.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly

The Lawless Elite

smokingpen — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 17:24:11 +0000

Tobias Buckell updated his blog with a post dealing with the lawless elite. These are (often) the protagonists in action movies that get away with a lot. Think John McClane from Die Hard or Martin Riggs from Lethal Weapon or (more recently) Bryan Mills from Taken or a whole host of other characters from movies and television that seem to get away with a lot of death and carnage because what they are doing is morally correct or morally superior at the time they are doing it.

Buckell approaches his argument in light of this kind of character from the perspective of his own perpetual protagonist, Pepper. Pepper has the necessary moral ambiguity to kill when necessary, not worry about innocents dying, and move on. Pepper is a lot like Jack Bauer on 24 when he watches someone die that didn’t need to die but helped catch one of the bad guys: no emotion. Whether or not death or destruction affect Jack Bauer or Martin Riggs or John McClane or Bryan Mills or anyone else isn’t really the factor in the lawless elite character; rather, it is how they comport themselves and move forward.

What I think Buckell and others miss about these stories is that they are often snapshots of time. The audience is, very frequently, not included in what happened in the life of the protagonist (or anti-hero) prior to the events, nor do they get to see what happens to them after the events. Instead, the moral ambiguity that is seen and the lack of emotion that causes people to stand up and cheer, these things are small bits while the true psychological impact of what has happened or is happening doesn’t play out in a movie.

I can’t imagine seeing Martin Riggs in any of the Lethal Weapons stopping to consider consequences of his actions. It is because of this (and for the comedic effect) that you have the interplay with the staff psychologist who, in the earlier movies, is trying to help and in the last movie when Riggs is ready to talk can’t believe he actually wants her help. Where in the current season of 24 two things have happened, one is Jack taking responsibility for his actions not only in front of a Senate sub-committee, but also Jack telling other people that they have to take responsibility for their own actions. Part of the penance Jack Bauer has decided to go through began before the season started in a short movie where he is in the country of Sangala (sp) at a home for orphan boys trying to make good on all the bad he’s done. Part of Jack’s growth and penance happened in the face of his wife and girlfriend dying, people he cares for being killed, and his daughter refusing to have anything to do with him. Jack is a lone wolf.

John McClane in the Die Hard series, in the most recent one, tells Matt Ferrell that killing someone is a bad thing and he’d hoped that the moral ambiguity that allows him to do that was behind him at the same time as he’s been dragged back into an action role. Like Jack Bauer, John McClane has to deal with a divorce and children that want nothing to do with him. He has to deal with lost friends, lost relationships, and the consequences of his actions.

In later lawless elite action movies, in order to keep the characters interesting, a few minutes, maybe a dozen lines of dialogue, are given to the consequences and then the movie turns to action and we move forward. The audience is given a snapshot into the life of one member of the lawless elite.

Consider that it is not about a penchant for taking the law into one’s own hands that make these characters who they are, but rather a willingness to take the law into their hands that make them interesting for the scope of that single story or snapshot – we as an audience are not privy to consequences. You can set aside laws and leave yourself in the grasp of moral ambiguity and not worry about a whole host of things simply because circumstances dictate actions and action (in this context) is what the audience wants. This is the reason that, in a very limited capacity, a man with a gun can insist upon breakfast. It is under this premise that the audience feels they, too, under the right circumstances, might be able to do what the protagonist is doing and as a result this is the reason these movies become popular.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly

Just a weeeee bit lazy

smokingpen — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 00:58:35 +0000

Updating has been a bit of a chore for me the past few days. Well, couple of weeks, really. Life is still up in the air and as such, I don’t really make it a priority to update. As I stated, I did go and speak to the director of a MFA-Writing program I will apply to. Erin and I sold her car today. That will come in handy. I think I spent something like 500 hours in a couple of different cars this afternoon. Even though I enjoy driving, there is something peculiar about east coast drivers that is beginning to cause me to want to live on an island that requires a small ferry boat to get one to and from it and isn’t big enough to warrant having a car. The problem with that is that I am addicted to the Internet and am not interested in living somewhere sans high speed access; I don’t think Erin would be too hip on living on an island cut off from everyone; and after watching (horrible) commercials for this years slate of horror movies that are based so far outside of reality, I don’t think living that far distant from people is smart. I mean, get for real folks, we have murders and such because of these movies. Kids don’t know enough about life to know what not to mimic. And yes, that is a statement against the inherent violence in movies and video games. And yes, I do believe they cause more violence in life in general. And yes, I would support measures to not only curb the violence, but to eliminate it from media all together.

That is all I have to say for today.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly

Dollhouse :: Joss Whedon’s pilot

smokingpen — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:55:37 +0000

I have to say, in line with what the numbers show, that Dollhouse, by Joss Whedon, is not worth watching. I watched the pilot and Erin’s comment to me that Eliza Dushku can’t pull off what is required for that show is pretty much spot on. I have to tell you the episode was boring, it wasn’t worth watching. I can see why it went back for rewrites and reshoots. There is no reason, in my mind, for Fox to support Whedon in this thing. And unlike Firefly, which was freaking awesome and didn’t get the support it deserved, this show just sucks. I cannot imagine a scenario given the current formula the show is following where it will be worth the effort to continue watching it. It really was that bad.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

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