What's the Good of Art That Never Changes?

Thinking about this article.

Here's the deal.

LULU was NOT a "Metallica" album. It was a Lou Reed album on which Metallica performed as his backing band, and they did that because an artist they respected asked them to. I get why people don't dig it, as it's vastly difficult to listen to. It's atonal and Reed's vocals are simply not for everyone.

My original review, if you're interested.

That said, I cannot fathom why people feel the need to continue harping on a creative enterprise, vehemently and aggressively, years and years after they already claim to have written it off. Just look at the comments on that article (I know - NEVER read the comments). It's cool to say "I don't dig it" (I'm still, to this day, not sure if I dig LULU). Hetfield does, the band has, repeatedly, said they do. They reached beyond their comfort zone and tried something different.

We should be encouraging artists to do more of that, even when/if they fail.

No one can argue against the fact that, as a commercial enterprise, LULU landed with a thud. Thing is, did anybody involved with this really think it was going to sell like a "traditional" Metallica album? I highly doubt it. Metallica said yes, and did it, because they wanted to do something different. There will come a time in every artists life where they will ask themselves, "what if I do exactly what I'm not supposed to do?"

When that moment comes, if you're brave enough to actually do it, one of two things usually happens. Either the whole thing is a mess, possibly an interesting one, or it could touch on genius. I classify LULU as the former, with a significant number of tracks that fall into the "interesting" description.

Yet, the band is vilified, for nothing more than taking a risk. No one says you have to like it, but the sheer, vehement hate that tends to spill out on to anything that isn't what we expected, or thought we wanted, seems like a call of surrender, to me. I feel like we, as a culture, are so very trapped in the "more of the same" mindset.

Regurgitate, regurgitate, regurgitate, and I think it's spilling over into a lot of different conversations.

I, like many people, have found myself watching various "fan films" that have cropped up on-line. At first, probably like you, I was in awe of the technical skill on display, the commitment to detail. Who isn't excited to see Batman face down a Predator, or to see a thrilling lightsaber duel. As time went on, however, something began to dawn on me.

What is the point?

I mean, really, what is the point?

Why are obviously talented and resourceful filmmakers regurgitating this stuff, rather than creating new material? Material they can own and possibly profit from? Material that actually moves the genre forward? The sci-fi and fantasy genres are littered with homage and "theft." Instead of making a Batman film, create your own dark avenger of the night. Even better? Make the character a woman, or black, or Muslim, someone reflective of a culture who's entire range of touchstones wasn't set in the 1960's, when it was all set by white men.

Add something to the discussion and the tapestry that is our popular culture.

We don't need a Masters of the Universe movie. We don't need a Thundercats movie. Those were junk culture for my generation. It's only our incredible greediness that's keeping them alive, and the fact that there are way too many professional filmmakers are acting like they just want to make fan films. We shouldn't be up in arms about Jem and the Holograms tanking because "girls need their films,too." The girls of 2015 should most definitely have their own thing, but our generation has get it in our heads that the healthy thing would be for it to not be a re-hash of our thing.

I mean, look, I'm as excited as the next guy about Star Wars next week, but what's cool is that the entire saga is designed to be a generational thing. There's a new generation of heroes for kids to attach themselves to that are theirs with each trilogy. Which, of course, doesn't sit well with the fundamentalists....leading us back to the same kind of anger and hate we were talking about with LULU.

When the digital media revolution happened, there was so much talk about the democratization of media. If music and movies could be made in your bedroom, what amazing stories might we get? What we got was more of the same, and we've become painfully attached to making sure we get more of the same. People like to blame Hollywood and the movie studios, but they respond to what we respond to, and right now, we're plopping our butts in seats to see the umpteenth variation on the Marvel Studios formula. So they do what they've always done...gave us more of the same.

I Grow Weary

I love Super Heroes. I love comic books. With passion, I love these things. I have been an avid reader and fan since I could read. The mythology and their place as teachers of moral codes is unparallelled and deserves respect. I am who I am because of these characters...I would never give up one iota of what they have given me in my life.

But....

I think I am completely burnt out on film and TV adaptations. I feel like I'm drowning in superheroes.

Every once in a while I get excited because something looks different or unexpected, but, in the main...It's like an obligation, not a joy. I'll see Avengers, I'll see Ant-Man, I'll see Fantastic Four (and the last one actually has been surprising me with the imagery that's been released), but I can't say I feel excited about any of them. I am also just simply bored to tears with Robert Downey Jr's shtick.

I watched Daredevil, and was left pretty cold. Darkness and noir style I can enjoy (and, in fact, I love it), but brutality and gore simply doesn't work for me. I can't get through a single episode of SHIELD, let alone a full season. Arrow is working for me, to a point...I AM excited to start watching The Flash, as a life-long fan of the character.

I admit, I didn't hate the Batman v Superman teaser, mainly because they've taken my main problem with Man of Steel and addressed it head-on. That was unexpected, and intriguing. It also, like Fantastic Four, doesn't look like any of these other films.

Mad Max makes me excited. The Star Wars stuff makes me excited. Tomorrowland makes me excited. Things that are new, or have been away for a good, long while.

But, here I am a lifelong fan...and I'm sorta bored with the whole superhero thing. I shocks me. I can't imagine what a "civilian" might be starting to feel.

Now, I know exactly the reaction that I'm going to get there...that I am wrong, that it's a golden age. That Marvel Studios is perfect in every way. If you feel that way, fantastic, but I am also pretty fed up with a fandom that resembles cheering for a sports team.

I often wonder if that isn't my problem. I feel inundated with stuff I am supposed to be excited about because everyone else is, and if I don't agree, or offer mild criticisms, I'm "the guy who hates everything." Well, maybe I am, but so be it.

Peter Capaldi and the New Fans/Old Fans Thing

So, we have our 12th (13th?) Doctor for Doctor Who. Peter Capaldi.

Me? I am OVER THE MOON with this choice. Capaldi is certainly the best all-around actor to take the role since Christopher Eccelston. Make no mistake, I have enjoyed both David Tennant and Matt Smith, they have given valid, fine performances, but they have never, for me, reached a depth that Eccelston found. One that made the moments when he flew into a run of hyperactivity poignant compared to the deep sadness his hurt, traumatized Time Lord was carrying with him.

Tennant started out well, but I truly believe he overstayed his welcome. His final "season" of Holiday specials, if you remove the wonderful Waters of Mars, is really underwhelming, all the way to outright crap. His regeneration sequence, as well, marks the creative nadir of the revived series. Exchanging poignancy for outright schmaltz and downright horrid overacting from Tennant. I can't even watch it. It's too awful.

Smith came on like gangbusters, and I was very taken, right out of the gate. However, two factors began to wear on me. One, Smith's portrayal, and I'm not the only one to notice this, was just a bit too close to Tennant's for me. Two, Stephen Moffat's direction for the show has trudged, more and more, to being a "fairy tale." This actually didn't bother me when we were exploring Amy Pond's first year, when Moffat positioned The Doctor as Amy's imaginary friend returned...it worked. Then Amy leaves, and you're parking the TARDIS on a cloud.

Which is possibly the dumbest thing I've ever seen on Doctor Who. I've also been a fan since the mid-80's...I have seen a LOT of dumb shit on Doctor Who. That, however, was the first time I said, "are you kidding? What the fuck is THAT!?" out loud to the TV. It's one thing to be low-budget sci-fi, and trying to do big ideas on nothing, and another to have shit-tons of money, and use it to execute something that far outside the accustomed tone of the show.

(I do believe the format is wide-open and flexible enough to encompass a whole lot of different styles and tones. I will go pretty much anywhere, but that bit just seemed to far outside the, science way beyond our kin, but still science, tone that I associate with the show.)

Connected to that, is that the single most exciting thing, for me, with each regeneration was not knowing who The Doctor would turn out to be. Which is why, in hindsight, I'm very disappointed with the production team following Tennant with Smith. Again, neither one was bad, but there was a consistency of energy, and a "hey, look how goofy I am!" quality that, while endearing, was also kind of a violation of the single most exciting thing about regeneration as a plot element. The constant of change.

And, yes, I am an "old-school" fan. Capaldi feels, to me, like the kind of Doctor we haven't seen in a long, long time. A callback to the early days of the show. Physically, he conjurers thoughts of William Hartnell, and there's records of him writing fan letters during Jon Pertwee's tenure. He also, very specifically during his formal introduction as the winner of the role, did a variation of Hartnell's famous gesture of holding his lapels and twiddling his thumbs...which was such a lovely nod to those of us who "got it." If Capaldi can find a way to mix elements of those two readings of the character, he'll probably be able to knock Paul McGann out of my top three.

Ultimately, what is most exciting for me is that this casting...just on a pure demographic level, if nothing else...somewhat signals a desire to change things up. I think it's time for that. Eccelston's (far too short) run felt connected to the old show, but modernized and energized. Tenneant opened those floodgates to a lot of concepts and dramatic twists that, flat out, having an attractive young man at the helm of the TARDIS made possible...

But I'm sick of them.

I am sick of sexual tension between The Doctor and his female companions, for example. Ever since the doomed love affair between the 10th and Rose, this has just always been an issue. Sometimes sub-textually, sometimes right out in the open. I admit, the early days of Amy Pond's outright lust for 11 were amusing, but consider that Tennant's best and most memorable companion wasn't Rose, it was Donna. It was also, hands down, Tennant's best season on the show. That was in no small part to the fact they killed any hint of romance between them right off the bat.

Likewise, I want a return of male companions. Rory was sublime, and Arthur Darvill probably created the single best male companion the show has ever had. However, yet again, as with Mickey in the Rose years, the role of that male companion had to be defined in a romantic sense.

Love? Affection? Commitment? Protectiveness? Absolutely, but I don't think I need to see a companion pining for The Doctor, or worse, The Doctor pining for a companion, again for a very, very long time. An older Doctor (probably) eliminates all of that. It takes him back to the father-figure mode, which is where I think the character operates best.

Also on my list?

Pull a Davison and destroy the damn sonic screwdriver, because it's become WAY, WAY too easy to use it as a "magic fix everything stick." Make the Doctor rely on his wits and cunning, rather than the sonic.

Ease up on the Daleks. We don't need to see them every, single season. Hell, Davison only encountered them once in three years. The last few Dalek episodes have been...."underwhelming" is kind. They used to be surprising and unexpected. I love them, but wait until you have a really good story to use them in, rather than have a "new season? We need a new Dalek episode" mindset (Don't deny it, it's obvious).

(Obviously, the 50th Anniversary episode HAS to have Daleks, at some point...I'll give you that one).

So, I'm really excited. Davison is my favorite Doctor, ever, and he was the youngest at that time, so I'm not against a younger Doctor, but this change is all for the good. It's the most I've been excited about the show at least since Donna came on board, and probably since Eccelston's season, honestly. Peter Capaldi is EXACTLY the kind of actor I wished for, and I cannot wait to see him in action.

Not everyone feels that way. 

Now, what saddens me about that article, and the comments I have personally read, is that it jibes with personal observations I've made regarding the way Doctor Who fandom has changed since the series was revived in 2005, and especially since Tennant came on board in 2006. I can only point to the VAST difference in it's presence at San Diego Comic-Con today, with thousands of screaming fans trying to get into Hall H to see the stars, versus my 2006 Con trip, where the presence was minimal. I realize that fandom, as a whole, has changed over these past 7 years. Becoming more inclusive and mainstream.

But Doctor Who fandom specifically, I feel, has become more personality-driven. That really isn't a bad thing, and there's always been some element of that. Everybody has "their" Doctor, but this explosion in the show's popularity, along with the relative "sameness" of the last two actors, really made me terrified that the BBC would just find another young, pretty guy. Letting demographics and marketing drive creative choices. The fact they didn't makes me far more hope about the future of the show.

Because I have had a lot of bad feeling about the future of this show. The general turn to the "fairy tale" aspects, the seemingly one-note casting. I was going to give whoever got this role a few episodes, but if it was another round of "spazzy puppy" Doctor, I was going to drift away.  I have old episodes I can watch, and that works for me.

I feel a sense now that somebody, maybe it's Moffat, maybe higher up at the BBC, realizes the true strength of the show. That it should surprise, and that each actor who finds himself throwing switches on that console ought to feel fundamentally different from the last. All while keeping the sense of adventure and excitement, of course.

Some of the fanbase won't see it that way. They'll see Capaldi as "too old," or "not sexy," or whatever, and they'll drift away. Frankly, to my mind, those aren't real fans of Doctor Who. They're fans of Matt Smith, or David Tennant, and that's a fine thing. They found a home with the show for a few years while the actor they liked was on board, and then they moved on. That's not good, or bad...it just is.

This choice, however, makes me very, very hopeful. How long will he stay? Who'll come after? Will they directly deal with the 12 regenerations limitation, or sweep it under the rug? (I so hope the former)

And if the next Doctor is back to the youthful, hyperactive routine, so be it...because they've given me the variation I longed for. I trust the people pulling the strings are willing to surprise, and I'm in for the long haul.

Springsteen and I

I am a Bruce Springsteen fan.

 I'm going to be honest about this, I didn't expect a whole lot out of this documentary. I mean, I expected to get emotional over it, because...if you missed it...*I am a Bruce Springsteen fan.* That goes without saying, because I am the target audience for this film. I'd read a few reviews that positioned it that way, as well. Pleasant, interesting, but not revelatory.

I think that's selling the film short. I don't want to over-hype it, but something very interesting, and I think far deeper than simple fan connection was going on here. It goes beyond wanting to feel a connection to a rock star, and, yes, plays into the Springsteen Fan belief that Bruce's songwriting touches something deep an primal. The film really, to me, is about how these people...people who recorded these vignettes themselves, with  no promise of reccompence, look into what Bruce has written, and see themselves. Who feel that going to a Springsteen show isn't just a concert, it's a connection to humanity, as a whole.

Certainly part of that is that Bruce works VERY HARD. There's a lot of performance footage to prove that. But lots of performers work hard, yet, people look at Springsteen on that stage and they see someone that reflects themselves. Who shares intimate stories that feel like your own.

The film, in many cases, is a chance to reciprocate. There are a LOT of really great, personal, and in some cases, intimate stories told, and I think most of these folks saw this film as a chance to thank the man who's brought them a lot of joy and solace over the years.

I was particularly taken with one woman, who shared the story of, as a thirteen-year-old ninth grader in the mid-70's, sneaking out to go to a concert. She worked her way up to the front row, and was lifted onto the stage with Bruce by the men around her, and then gently back down. Ultimately, you realize that what this woman is sharing is her sexual awakening, with that "beautiful man" on the stage in front of her, and the men around her, as she was soaked with sweat in her red silk dress.

I have to admit, she was obviously reading something she had carefully written out, and that made the whole story a little odd and overly flowery. Yet the power of what she was describing, the way it obviously affected her..it was powerful. The emotional truth of what she was describing just transcended the ever-so-slightly overbaked prose.

I also loved the couple who's video mainly consisted of the husband grousing about being dragged to concerts, which, in his opinion, went on WAY too long, by the wife he obviously loved very much. It was lovely, in that it wasn't mean-spirited, and yet truthful.

The English factory worker, who saved up and took a trip to New York to see one of the epic Reunion Tour live shows at Madison Square Garden. Staying in a crappy hotel, eking by financially, only to find their tickets are basically the worst in the house...last row, top tier. Then a man approaches, who, by description, I would guess was Springsteen's Road Manager Terry McGovern, asks to see their tickets. "I think we can do better than that," he says, handing them pit passes and front row seats.

Every Springsteen fan has heard these stories. I teared up listening to this man tell his tale. Sometimes it feels like magic happens, when "the organization" seems to know exactly who needs something special to happen, and when.

I could go on. Some critics have knocked the film for a few self-aggrandizing vignettes, and, y'know, that is true. They are there, but every time it was getting too much, the editors cut to something far more intimate.

So, I enjoyed it, a lot.

I'll share one more of the stories, because, damn it, it was my favorite.

One of the fans, throughout the film, is a greenskeeper for a stadium in Stockholm, I believe (memory is fuzzy), where the E-Street band is playing. The epilogue of the film involves several of the fans having a meet and greet with Bruce (including the mildly disgruntled husband, "we tried to cut it short for ya tonight, but it didn't work out!" says Bruce).

The groundskeeper is quiet and respectful during the meet and greet, when Bruce approaches him they begin to talk about his job. He tells Bruce he'll be back on the field at 10 AM the next day to repair the damage from the concert. The conversation ends...

Then we see an interview with the man after, and he relates that, once the camera were turned off, Bruce returned to the room. Springsteen walked up to him, and removed a leather bracelet from his own wrist, and placed in on the fan's. I couldn't believe how calm the guy was when he described Bruce looking at him and saying, "this is a symbol of brotherhood."

On the way home CByrd and I wondered why Bruce would do that. Was it because the guy was so quiet and respectful? Now I realize, that guy, by putting the place in order after the show, was part of the team. He's part of the machine that makes an E-Street Band show possible, and he wanted to acknowledge that.

I'd have lost it. Completely.

If you're a fan, it's a must-see, obviously. If you're not? It's entertaining, and if you've wondered about the connection that hard-core fans have with Springsteen, the film offers some rather effective first-hand witnessing. It also offers enough silly moments and pure fun so as not to be off-putting.

The Geek Girl Quandry

I would guess about four times a day, I see a post directing me to a video such as this.

Which is terrific. And I agree, kids, those ladies have nothing to prove.

But, here's the deal....That doesn't prove anything, one way or another, about the concept of the "Fake Geek Girl." Mainly because when I, and the people I know, refer to "Fake Geek Girls." it's not those ladies.

Geek Girls exist, be loud and be proud.

But Fake Geek Girls exist, too. So do Fake Geek Guys, without a doubt. You see them at every convention. We all have.

The girls are usually in a "costume" that suggests the absolute LEAST amount of effort and detail possible, while exposing the maximum amount of skin. I have seen them, their time is spent exclusively wandering the floor posing for pictures. No panels or autographs for these folks. Sometimes, you'll find out they have a table, signing nude photos and "adult" videos. Their "geekness" is wholly tied to attention or selling something.

The guys? Usually fit the "bro" model. They wander around looking for girls in revealing costumes, and mock other convention-goers. They are loud and obnoxious, drawing attention to themselves, because they are pretty well convinced they're the coolest guys in the room. No panels or autographs for these guys, unless they can enjoy themselves mocking it. They feign "geekness" in order to feel superior.

I am NOT saying this is the norm, or the majority, in either case, but THESE PEOPLE DO EXIST.

I like to refer to them as "assholes," but "Fake Geeks" works, too.

What bothers me is that, when I point out this observation, I'm inevitably accused of being a Male Chauvinist Pig. The anger is not toward those who are clearly perpetuating a stereotype, no, it's for pointing out, quite simply, that giving you, as a "Geek Girl," respect, is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT thing from pointing out that someone is an attention whore.

 I'm certain many of the Geek Girls out there know EXACTLY what I am talking about. There's a big difference between a woman spending hour upon hour, and hundreds of dollars, building a quality, sexy, detailed and accurate Power Girl costume, and one buying a set of Wonder Woman Underoos, a size too small, and calling that a costume (which I have LITERALLY seen on the floor at SDCC). One is cool as hell, the other makes me shake my head.

Are there male members of our Fandom community who don't get that? Oh, you betcha. Who like to lash out and miss the traditional idea of Geekery as a "He-Man Woman Hater's Club?" Of course. I have no patience for that. It should not be condoned or endured.

However, on the other side, I, as a fanboy, also have a problem with the assumption, which is just as pervasive, if not more so, that I can easily be manipulated, or mocked, because I can't get laid.

Neither attitude is useful, correct, or enlightened. They also both exist. I won't pretend they don't.