OMG! I just created something! I am the most creative human ever to have lived on the planet! I am the most creative human to have never lived yet in the future too! That means for you what can't follow the logic I am the most creative human ever to create with my creative creativity of creativeness!
Yes, they're back! That's right, you fuckin' heard me, Deranged Mountain Goats from Hell are back and in charge! Some of you may be wondering, Khomus old buddy, what the hell are you talking about? Just never you mind what I'm talking about, it's too good for the likes of you anyway! But I feel sorry that you all lack my godlike creativity, so I give you ... the greatest song ever in the history of humanity!
Now I know, after listening, and taking twenty hours to get yourself under control from the uncontrollable weeping and gnashing of teeth you did because you'll never be as creative as me, some of you feel the need to doubt. Some of you wanna be haters. Some of you feel the need to bring the great down to their ... those things ... you know, that you lesser mortals kneel on to worship my creativity ... those things, whatever they're called. Some of you, to take back a phrase I originated and Ayn Rand stole, hate the good because it is good. I understand, it is not easy nor comfortable to grapple with the depths of my awesomenessitude.
And those among you who doubt, who hate, who struggle, are going to say, Khomus, we still don't know what these Deranged Mountain Goats from Hell are, we've never once heard of them, and besides, it's just like electronica from the sixties. Ha! Let me explain something to you, foolish haters! I bitchslapped electronica from the sixties, kicked it out of the grave, washed it, combed its hair, cleaned it the fuck up, put it to bed, kicked its ass out of bed when I thought it had gotten enough sleep to recover from the resurrection beatdown I'd given it, and then, threw it up against the wall and kicked it in the nuts. While it was writhing around on the floor, I told it, now you listen here punk! You've been slacking off, but I'm gonna stop that right now! Get back to work!
This my friends isn't your sixties electronica with tape loops and razor blades and primitive synthesizers and ... well you get the idea. No my friends, this is lovingly made with the newest, most exciting, up-to-date modern technology available on the face of the planet! It would have taken any fifty of you twenty years of constant work to create something even approaching the complete gnarliness which I produced in ... well however long it is, five minutes, let's say, as a nice round number.
Some of you haters might even be saying, hey man, it just sounds like you were screwing around with a synthesizer. You probably don't even remember the settings you had it on and so you're lucky that your computer saved them when you saved the project so your dumb ass doesn't have to try to recreate it all again. Please! I implore you, I beg of you! Just because every single word of this is absolutely true, that's no reason not to admire and praise my infinitely fulfilling maxigrandiosinization! I mean, let's be honest with ourselves, for just a minute! Can we do that?
Some of you might even be thinking, the very lowest among you, you who crawl like worms seeking crumbs of creativity from my bountifully excessive mental banquet, that you could have done better, or even that I have surpassed the bounds of immodesty and supreme egoism, and have in fact entered into a realm of delusion so deep and self-enclosed that it is a wonder I am able to even type on this blog, let alone form coherent sentences or indeed words for you to read. Well let me just say something. Whaaaaaa! ladsjfoiwqefgio;wejglk;asnvksdnajklfhasl;ja;gaslf;djlk;asgoi! You're all meanies! Great big meanies! I am awesome and creative, I'm telling you! And ... and .. gosh darn it ... no ... no ... gods damn it, PEOPLE .... FUCKING .... LIKE .... MEE!
P.S.
Hi kids! Deranged Mountain Goats from Hell are a name I invented when I was messing around with jew's harp and effects. The recordings are aweful and shall, if I can help it never see the light of day, night, or that sort of in between state. They might see the light of a bonfire some day. Heh, nah, they weren't that bad, completely pointless, but they were experiments anyway. So was this one, I found a synth setting I liked and had at it. Now you get to hear too. As to why this is dedicated to Henry, he'd rave about every song he ever created. I figured I'd try to surpass him at his self-congratulatory craziest. He'll have to let you know how I did. Hey, everybody goes through the "I'm so awesome" phase ... except me because I can't lie to myself that much, heh! Keep on keepin' on, children of the corn.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Friday, February 8, 2008
Romantic comedies
You know, I'm not really a manly man. That is, I don't think women are stupid, out to get me, betray me at every turn, you get the idea. Nor am I big into the idea that there's this vast gulf betwixt men and women, and it shall never ever be bridged until the end of time, and probably not even then, yea verily. Having said that, I think there are some differences between them, men and women this is, and an easy way to see this is to go see a romantic comedy with a woman. Guys, settle the hell down. Just go do it. Trust me. Or read this, and save yourself the trouble. Because I'm right, no matter what women tell you.
So what is this difference? Well first of all women, I hate to break it to you, but it's not no blood/explosions/car chases. Women have this idea that men hate romantic comedies because stuff's not getting blown up. To an extent this is true, but I think there's a bigger reason. Maybe men won't admit to it, maybe they don't even know it themselves, but I'm here to tell you what it is anyway.
Mind you, I'm not saying Sleepless in Seattle couldn't have been spiced up with a few machine guns or something, but hey, that's just sensible. I mean, if you heard a machinegun going off outside, wouldn't you start going "holy shit, what's that?" Sure you would! You're interested in explosions and destruction, admit it. Besides, since this stuff all takes place in the same whacky movie universe, surely you could've had part of Die Hard flash past while they were meeting on the Empire State Building or something. That plane Bruce Willis was involved with had to go somewhere, now didn't it? You bet your ass.
But I'm not here to talk about any of that, and really the movie I gave is a bad example. Let's talk about The Wedding Singer instead. Here's the plot. Girl's marrying guy, guy is some boring unspontaneous accountant or something, wedding singer loves girl, professes his love on the plane to their wedding, girl goes off with wedding singer. At this point, let me comment on the "comedy" portion of "romantic comedy". you might think, given the definition of the word and all, that "comedy" means it's going to be funny. You would be almost entirely incorrect. "Comedy", in this context, seems to mean "not drama". I think for movie people, this translates into "the couple in question didn't have to flee Nazi occupied France, fearing for their lives every step of the way, thus putting their deeply passionate love on hold."
In general, comedy, the funny kind, will be almost entirely lacking from these movies. Let's take Ghost. I assume Ghost is a romantic comedy, and if it isn't, it should be. It's horrible enough to be one. Here's what I remember about Ghost. "Molly, I'm communicating with Patrick/Dale/Winston your dead husband." "Fuck you crazy bitch, you isn't!" "Yes, I am! He says to tell you, packing peanuts!" "Oh Patrick/Dale/Winston, it is you! It is you! (copious weeping) It is you! Wait, no it isn't! That can't be true! Go away you crazy bitch!" "No no Molly, it's true! He says to tell you, laundry prestidigitation!" "Oh Patrick/Dale/Winston, it is you! (more weeping) No it's not! Crazy bitch! Leave me alone crazy bitch! Calling the police crazy bitch! (weeping)" "No, Molly, listen! He says to tell you, I don't know why, wait, you fuckin' crazy ... OK ... he says to tell you, chewy popcorn!" "Oh Patrick/Dale/Winston, it really is you! (weeping) No, not possible, crazy bitch! (weeping)" That was, I swear, a good half hour of the movie.
So OK, you won't find any comedy, most of the time. But romance, surely you'll find romance, it's right there in the name, romantic comedy, and they wouldn't lie about all of it, would they? Well, you'll find romance, after a fashion, yes. Recall the plot summary of The Wedding Singer above. Just about every romantic comedy is about that. Girl marries boy who's not spontaneous, or just sort of boring, or a little controlling, or whatever, or she's preparing to marry him. Some new guy comes in, or an old guy, and he has a motorcycle or flowers or a kangaroo obsession or something. Basically, whatever the woman wants that the guy she's married to or preparing to marry doesn't do, this guy does it. Girl runs off with other guy, the one she's not married to/preparing to marry. The end.
OK, now remember I said there's a difference between men and women, and a reason men refuse to see these things? Here it is. For women, this plot seems to translate into something like the following. "Oh how sweet, she found her true love after all!" Here's what it translates to for men. "Huh? What? Wait, hang on a minute, what the fuck? I mean, OK, maybe that guy was kind of an asshole, but things were going fine, she gave no indication of a problem whatsoever, and suddenly, poof!, she's running off with the kangaroo keeper at the zoo! What the hell?" See, women seem to find this freeing or something. But it's basically the equivalent of "well baby, I asked you to practice the yoga, but I met this hot young yoga instructor who can put her legs behind her head, and we have at it all night long. So, umm, yeah, see ya! What? Oh, yeah, I know I never really mentioned I was having a problem, but I thought all the yoga books I left lying around and the comments about how I bet it makes for great sex would tip you off." Except in romantic comedies, the women usually don't even give that much.
In short, the basic plot of romantic comedies is the female equivalent of the male midlife crisis complete with hot young trophy wife. Pretty it up all you like women, that's essentially what it is. These women either have a commitment or make one, if they're not married they're generally fiancees, and completely ignore it to go off with the guy who really pushes their buttons. And oops, too bad for you accountant or lawyer or whatever the fuck boring profession you have, because those posters of dolphins all over the house, you know, the ones you complained about?, those should have tipped you off that deep within her secret soul, she yearned for dolphins. Remember how she asked you about honeymooning at Sea World, and you said, "Sea World? Well honey, gee, I've got these fucking reservations at the most expensive hotel in Paris. Sea world?" You remember that, vaguely assholish lawyer/accountant/whatever? That was your only indication that your ass was going to get left at the altar, or that she'd run off to Mexico for a month without telling you, or whatever happens in your particular movie.
Of course, we're supposed to side with the poor and charming guy who gets the woman, as opposed to the rich asshole who loses her. So there's supposed to be something in it for guys too. But sorry, I for one ain't buyin' it, and this is that reason I talked about earlier, I don't think guys in general are buying it either. These movies basically amount to a big propaganda machine that says "hey girls, don't like your man? Well, just drop him for somebody else like a hot rock. Your life will be totally better, and you didn't really love that other guy anyway, you were just tricking yourself or settling."
Besides, let's be realistic here. Romantic comedies are all the same. Sure, you're saying, wait, the plot details vary slightly and they are different people, and it's all about the characters, don't you see? Yeah, but really, they're the same characters. More or less desperate woman, guy who's wealthy or has a high-paying job like an executive or something, new guy who's poor but all adventurous and stuff.
Whereas action movies, well, you have your villain who wants to take over the world, your villain who wants to take over the universe, your villain who wants lots of money, your villain who wants to destroy you, your villain who wants to destroy your country, your cold calculating villain, your crazed psychopathic villain, your coldly calculating crazed psychopathic villain ... you get the idea. Then you have locations. Location location location! Will it be in space? A parking garage? An airport? A foreign country? Your country? Your house? Your police station? Your military base? Your spa? Oh wait ... that's probably the wrong kind of action movie .. but you get the idea! And then there are the weapons! What will they be? Swords? Guns? Guns from the military that are illegal for you to own? Military ground vehicles that are illegal for you to own and operate? Military air vehicles that are illegal for you to own and operate? Military explosives that are illegal for you to own and handle? Will it appeal to the geeks and start out as a deeply complex computer-based situation involving invented cracking of systems, before ending up in a hail of military grade weapons fire, from the aforementioned military weapons you're not legally allowed to touch? Will it be lasers or other scary spooky weapons from the future?
But we're not done yet kids, oh noo! Who will our hero be? Will he be a mild-mannered cop? A loose canon? A soldier? A civilian who knows nothing about weapons but learns real fast because it's life or death, by the gods? Will it be a ninja? Will it be a kid? Will it be a kid ninja? Will it be a group of kid ninjas? Will it be a group of teenage kid ninjas who aren't even human, but are in fact based on some sort of amphibian? Naaaaaah, that's stupid, nobody'd do that. Will it be robots? Will it be formerly evil robots who've reformed and now know why we cry and only wish that they could weep for the hardness of the world, but it's Ok because the humans, the same humans the formerly evil robot was formerly attempting to kill, are weeping for him? Will it be a robot cop? Will it be a ninja and a cop? Will it be ... well, you get the idea!
We probably haven't even begun to touch on the myriad possibilities of action movies yet. So you see, when women say that romantic comedies are different and action movies are all the same, the weight of the evidence simply goes against them. Romantic comedies are cardboard cutouts, while action movies are a single, awe-inspiring heroic plot skeleton, fleshed out with all the myriad details that are the triumph of the human imagination. Plus, action movies have fire! Romantic comedies rarely even have hot kissing, probably because the participants are too busy pointlessly agonizing about the moral and ethical problems surrounding betraying their spouse/fiance, it's pointless because they're going to do it anyway so all the protesting doesn't amount to a hill of beans. So to sum up: romantic comedies == propaganda for women to dump guys, action movies == inspiring, heroic, and fire!
So what is this difference? Well first of all women, I hate to break it to you, but it's not no blood/explosions/car chases. Women have this idea that men hate romantic comedies because stuff's not getting blown up. To an extent this is true, but I think there's a bigger reason. Maybe men won't admit to it, maybe they don't even know it themselves, but I'm here to tell you what it is anyway.
Mind you, I'm not saying Sleepless in Seattle couldn't have been spiced up with a few machine guns or something, but hey, that's just sensible. I mean, if you heard a machinegun going off outside, wouldn't you start going "holy shit, what's that?" Sure you would! You're interested in explosions and destruction, admit it. Besides, since this stuff all takes place in the same whacky movie universe, surely you could've had part of Die Hard flash past while they were meeting on the Empire State Building or something. That plane Bruce Willis was involved with had to go somewhere, now didn't it? You bet your ass.
But I'm not here to talk about any of that, and really the movie I gave is a bad example. Let's talk about The Wedding Singer instead. Here's the plot. Girl's marrying guy, guy is some boring unspontaneous accountant or something, wedding singer loves girl, professes his love on the plane to their wedding, girl goes off with wedding singer. At this point, let me comment on the "comedy" portion of "romantic comedy". you might think, given the definition of the word and all, that "comedy" means it's going to be funny. You would be almost entirely incorrect. "Comedy", in this context, seems to mean "not drama". I think for movie people, this translates into "the couple in question didn't have to flee Nazi occupied France, fearing for their lives every step of the way, thus putting their deeply passionate love on hold."
In general, comedy, the funny kind, will be almost entirely lacking from these movies. Let's take Ghost. I assume Ghost is a romantic comedy, and if it isn't, it should be. It's horrible enough to be one. Here's what I remember about Ghost. "Molly, I'm communicating with Patrick/Dale/Winston your dead husband." "Fuck you crazy bitch, you isn't!" "Yes, I am! He says to tell you, packing peanuts!" "Oh Patrick/Dale/Winston, it is you! It is you! (copious weeping) It is you! Wait, no it isn't! That can't be true! Go away you crazy bitch!" "No no Molly, it's true! He says to tell you, laundry prestidigitation!" "Oh Patrick/Dale/Winston, it is you! (more weeping) No it's not! Crazy bitch! Leave me alone crazy bitch! Calling the police crazy bitch! (weeping)" "No, Molly, listen! He says to tell you, I don't know why, wait, you fuckin' crazy ... OK ... he says to tell you, chewy popcorn!" "Oh Patrick/Dale/Winston, it really is you! (weeping) No, not possible, crazy bitch! (weeping)" That was, I swear, a good half hour of the movie.
So OK, you won't find any comedy, most of the time. But romance, surely you'll find romance, it's right there in the name, romantic comedy, and they wouldn't lie about all of it, would they? Well, you'll find romance, after a fashion, yes. Recall the plot summary of The Wedding Singer above. Just about every romantic comedy is about that. Girl marries boy who's not spontaneous, or just sort of boring, or a little controlling, or whatever, or she's preparing to marry him. Some new guy comes in, or an old guy, and he has a motorcycle or flowers or a kangaroo obsession or something. Basically, whatever the woman wants that the guy she's married to or preparing to marry doesn't do, this guy does it. Girl runs off with other guy, the one she's not married to/preparing to marry. The end.
OK, now remember I said there's a difference between men and women, and a reason men refuse to see these things? Here it is. For women, this plot seems to translate into something like the following. "Oh how sweet, she found her true love after all!" Here's what it translates to for men. "Huh? What? Wait, hang on a minute, what the fuck? I mean, OK, maybe that guy was kind of an asshole, but things were going fine, she gave no indication of a problem whatsoever, and suddenly, poof!, she's running off with the kangaroo keeper at the zoo! What the hell?" See, women seem to find this freeing or something. But it's basically the equivalent of "well baby, I asked you to practice the yoga, but I met this hot young yoga instructor who can put her legs behind her head, and we have at it all night long. So, umm, yeah, see ya! What? Oh, yeah, I know I never really mentioned I was having a problem, but I thought all the yoga books I left lying around and the comments about how I bet it makes for great sex would tip you off." Except in romantic comedies, the women usually don't even give that much.
In short, the basic plot of romantic comedies is the female equivalent of the male midlife crisis complete with hot young trophy wife. Pretty it up all you like women, that's essentially what it is. These women either have a commitment or make one, if they're not married they're generally fiancees, and completely ignore it to go off with the guy who really pushes their buttons. And oops, too bad for you accountant or lawyer or whatever the fuck boring profession you have, because those posters of dolphins all over the house, you know, the ones you complained about?, those should have tipped you off that deep within her secret soul, she yearned for dolphins. Remember how she asked you about honeymooning at Sea World, and you said, "Sea World? Well honey, gee, I've got these fucking reservations at the most expensive hotel in Paris. Sea world?" You remember that, vaguely assholish lawyer/accountant/whatever? That was your only indication that your ass was going to get left at the altar, or that she'd run off to Mexico for a month without telling you, or whatever happens in your particular movie.
Of course, we're supposed to side with the poor and charming guy who gets the woman, as opposed to the rich asshole who loses her. So there's supposed to be something in it for guys too. But sorry, I for one ain't buyin' it, and this is that reason I talked about earlier, I don't think guys in general are buying it either. These movies basically amount to a big propaganda machine that says "hey girls, don't like your man? Well, just drop him for somebody else like a hot rock. Your life will be totally better, and you didn't really love that other guy anyway, you were just tricking yourself or settling."
Besides, let's be realistic here. Romantic comedies are all the same. Sure, you're saying, wait, the plot details vary slightly and they are different people, and it's all about the characters, don't you see? Yeah, but really, they're the same characters. More or less desperate woman, guy who's wealthy or has a high-paying job like an executive or something, new guy who's poor but all adventurous and stuff.
Whereas action movies, well, you have your villain who wants to take over the world, your villain who wants to take over the universe, your villain who wants lots of money, your villain who wants to destroy you, your villain who wants to destroy your country, your cold calculating villain, your crazed psychopathic villain, your coldly calculating crazed psychopathic villain ... you get the idea. Then you have locations. Location location location! Will it be in space? A parking garage? An airport? A foreign country? Your country? Your house? Your police station? Your military base? Your spa? Oh wait ... that's probably the wrong kind of action movie .. but you get the idea! And then there are the weapons! What will they be? Swords? Guns? Guns from the military that are illegal for you to own? Military ground vehicles that are illegal for you to own and operate? Military air vehicles that are illegal for you to own and operate? Military explosives that are illegal for you to own and handle? Will it appeal to the geeks and start out as a deeply complex computer-based situation involving invented cracking of systems, before ending up in a hail of military grade weapons fire, from the aforementioned military weapons you're not legally allowed to touch? Will it be lasers or other scary spooky weapons from the future?
But we're not done yet kids, oh noo! Who will our hero be? Will he be a mild-mannered cop? A loose canon? A soldier? A civilian who knows nothing about weapons but learns real fast because it's life or death, by the gods? Will it be a ninja? Will it be a kid? Will it be a kid ninja? Will it be a group of kid ninjas? Will it be a group of teenage kid ninjas who aren't even human, but are in fact based on some sort of amphibian? Naaaaaah, that's stupid, nobody'd do that. Will it be robots? Will it be formerly evil robots who've reformed and now know why we cry and only wish that they could weep for the hardness of the world, but it's Ok because the humans, the same humans the formerly evil robot was formerly attempting to kill, are weeping for him? Will it be a robot cop? Will it be a ninja and a cop? Will it be ... well, you get the idea!
We probably haven't even begun to touch on the myriad possibilities of action movies yet. So you see, when women say that romantic comedies are different and action movies are all the same, the weight of the evidence simply goes against them. Romantic comedies are cardboard cutouts, while action movies are a single, awe-inspiring heroic plot skeleton, fleshed out with all the myriad details that are the triumph of the human imagination. Plus, action movies have fire! Romantic comedies rarely even have hot kissing, probably because the participants are too busy pointlessly agonizing about the moral and ethical problems surrounding betraying their spouse/fiance, it's pointless because they're going to do it anyway so all the protesting doesn't amount to a hill of beans. So to sum up: romantic comedies == propaganda for women to dump guys, action movies == inspiring, heroic, and fire!
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